The Devil’s Cage

Kieran’s sight was blocked by the door and he could see beyond it but the malicious intent that he felt from his Intuition was as real as a cold sharp sword, thrusting towards him.

A moment later…

BANG!

The door was smashed to pieces and a figure dashed towards Kieran amidst the bursting door.

With the brightness of the lights around, Kieran recognized the figure was one of the mercenaries that he had killed a while ago at first sight.

A faint corpse stench entered his nose and when Kieran saw the corpse flying towards him, he couldn’t help but have goosebumps all over his body.

Kieran acted instinctively, he kicked the fighter’s body on the ground with his leg and sent it towards the corpse throwing itself over.

Bang!

When both of the corpses clashed, they burst as though a water balloon was smashed on the ground.

Thick dark green slime splashed all over, spilling over the ground and walls and upon contact it corroded the concrete ground, melting them into big holes.

The body that Kieran kicked over was also turned into a puddle of thick dye color upon contact. It reeked horribly and it assaulted Kieran’s nose.

He instinctively covered his nose and looked outside the door but another flying corpse blocked his sight.

Bang!

Kieran then lifted the other fighter’s body and threw it out following the steps of the mysterious attacker. After the second round of body exploding, Kieran picked up the searchlight beside his feet and dashed out.

No doubt it was the handy work of a mystical individual!

Other than a mystic, no one else could cause a dead body to change drastically in such a short amount of time. However, Kieran couldn’t confirm whether the mystic was a spellcaster or some user of special tools.

However, one thing was for sure which was Kieran couldn’t spare enough time for the mystical individual.

Facing against a mysterious mystic who trailed him in unknown ways, once Kieran gave him enough time to prepare, Kieran would be the one in peril.

So, Kieran dashed out without further ado.

Sou Sou Sou!

The moment Kieran dashed into the main hall, a couple more dead bodies were hurled at him with continuous air-breaking sounds.

Kieran was prepared for the sudden ambush, he hurled the searchlight upwards and dashed forward faster.

When the bodies clashed with the searchlight, Kieran was already a few meters out of range, despite a -3 debuff that lowered his Agility to A+.

At the same time, Kieran saw the mystic attacker that trailed him.

The person was wearing a long black robe standing at the main entrance of the clubhouse.

His robe had a hood attached, blocking most of his face and it only revealed his scrawny chin.

Similarly, the wide sleeves of his robe were covering his arms but the skull head that he held in his palm was very eye-catching.

Unlike the other bones that were ground into shape through time, the skull in the person’s hand was not only white in color but had a metal-like luster and in its deep eye sockets, two floating blueish green flames were burning continuously.

Bang Bang Bang!

Kieran raised his hand immediately and shots were fired without hesitation but when the bullets landed on the person’s body, it was like clay oxen that sank into the sea, vanishing without any sounds.

The mystical individual also felt nothing and he even started to change his incantations in a deep voice swiftly.

The next moment and before Kieran could even move again, a couple of skeleton claws sprung out from the ground, grabbing Kieran by his legs.

Each of the skeleton claws was like the skull in the mystical individual’s hand, metallic and lustrous.

The moment the claws grabbed Kieran, he felt like his legs were shackled down, restricting most of his movements.

“2567? What a weird name but I won’t diminish the value of your head a bit!”

The dry and rough voice was very unsettling from the bottom of one’s heart but it didn’t stop the mystical individual from being delighted.

“Trying to use other spellcaster’s methods against me? You are really delusional for an amnesia patient! I’ll take your head now!” The mystical individual declared loudly.

Fuuu!

The blueish green flames from the skull jumped up immediately, followed by a series of footsteps.

A group of mercenaries from the second floor came down in a staggered manner.

Each of them was pale and absent of any blood in their veins. Their eyes were dull and morbid.

No doubt all the mercenaries were dead but it didn’t stop the mystical individual from turning their bodies into weapons.

Especially when the dead mercenaries saw Kieran, their slow and staggered movements immediately changed into a furious dash like a mad dog, hurling themselves over to Kieran with all four of their limbs.

The black-robed mystical individual saw the scene and his laughs sounded more and more delightful. Although he spent quite the effort, the final bounty reward belonged to him.

Besides, he could also use this chance to display his strength before the Elder Council, perhaps he could attract some attention from a certain powerful person and thus rocket his status once and for all.

Everything was planned perfectly, to the point that it felt unreal.

Therefore when the mystical individual was forced to face reality, he was not willing to believe it.

His movements were almost stagnant as he witnessed Kieran break free from the seemingly unbreakable iron skeleton claws and grazed past him like a gale, dashing further away.

“You, you! You’re trying to escape? Who do you think…”

The mystical individual was stunned at first when he saw Kieran’s unusual movements and laughed coldly. He unconsciously thought Kieran was trying to escape.

However, Kieran then turned around and interrupted him instead, “Idiot.”

Kieran mocked the man and pointed at this feet with his finger.

The mystical individual tilted his head down and saw five grenades beside his feet.

He had no idea when the five grenades appeared beside his feet but he knew the pins on the grenades were removed.

He could use his secret spells to ignore bullets but it didn’t mean he could do to same to grenades.

The mystical individual wanted to kick the grenades away but the moment he moved his leg, the grenades went off.

KABOOM!

A total of five grenades exploding at point blank and given that the black-robed mystical individual had almost zero cover, he was blasted into bits.

An orange glowing item then appeared above the scattered body parts.

The moment the mystical individual was blasted to hell, the dead mercenaries too fell down one after another, dying for real this time.

Kieran picked up the item, it was a skull with a metallic luster over it.

[Name: Edeariel Skull Replicant]

[Type: ETC]

[Rarity: Rare]

[Attack: Weak]

[Defense: Weak]

[Attribute: 1. Dead Shield, 2. Dominate Dead, 3. Dead Breaths]

[Effect: None]

[Prerequisite: Spirit A]

[Remark: This isn’t the real skull of Edearial but a replicate of the real skull by a descendant but you shouldn’t look down on it because it is a replicant.]

…

[Dead Shield: Form a Strong shield with negative energy, 5-second duration, 2/day]

[Dominate Dead: Control dead bodies with overall attributes lower than E in a 50-meter radius range, 30-second duration, 1/day]

[Dead Breaths: When in control of a dead body, able to trigger a self-explosion of acid with a Strong attack, 3/day]

…

It was quite a decent item for Kieran at the moment but when he looked at the skull, he frowned hard.

How did the man trail him without being discovered?

With Kieran’s Intuition, he would have reacted to that malicious gaze whenever he was glanced at but the item he had gotten wasn’t a tool that covered his presence.

Could the mystical individual use his own power instead?

Or had someone tipped him off?

Kieran couldn’t help but squinted his eyes because there was only a handful of people who knew that he was going to the clubhouse.