The Devil’s Cage

The sky was torn open by a giant arm, a monster with limbs swirling around its giant eyes, glowing in a rainbow color, crawling out from the void.

Its eyes were shining, its mouth had saw-like teeth, spinning ceaselessly, as though it wanted to grind every living being into smithereens.

Creature of Desire!

The moment it appeared, everyone who laid eyes on it screamed in shock. Moreover, after multiple level ups and upgrades, its size had reached 5000 meters. The shock on people’s face made them look pale.

Everyone on the ground looked up to the Creature of Desire, as though they were almost eaten by the monster.

“W-What is this monster?” Kat Lady stuttered.

Drexton and Herzker heightened their cautions to an all time high.

Drexton looked worried, the thought ‘Is Alkender dogged with disaster?’ troubled his mind.

The Knight and Weapon Master, on the other hand recalled their memories, in hopes of finding more information about the monster but in the end, they shook their heads fruitlessly.

“Look!” Willis yelled.

A scarlet red figure burst out from Calamity Dragon’s body and landed on top of Creature of Desire.

The disgusting, scary looking Creature of Desire did not show any dissatisfaction or resistance, instead shaking its limbs like a spoiled child.

Everyone went blank at the scene, especially Cymilaide.

“T-T-This… Am I seeing this right? This monster is 2567’s pet?”

The investigator from the senate widened his eyes as his jaw dropped.

In fact, not only him, everyone else shared the same expression, even Calamity Dragon, who had initiated its self-destruct sequence.

It widened its only intact eye at Creature of Desire. Although the creature’s size was far smaller than itself, the danger that it emanated was serious.

Calamity Dragon felt like Kieran had seen through its next move again.

No! Impossible! How could this be!?

The moment the thought formed, it was discarded from its mind.

It had no ground to retreat now, the self-destruct sequence was irreversible.

All those thoughts were useless now!

“I’ll take you and this city to hell with me!” Calamity Dragon yelled, for it had gambled everything on this single move.

Devil Kieran reached out his hand and caressed Creature of Desire.

He too had no idea where Creature of Desire’s head was, so he simply caressed the part nearest to the core eye. When his magma hand touched Creature of Desire, an intimate feeling entered his heart.

After consuming a huge amount of [Aimida Flower], Creature of Desire was tamer than ever.

However, its trait of consuming items and equipment still hadn’t changed, therefore it was impossible for Kieran to summon it during normal times.

It was only necessary during crucial moments, like now, against the self-destructing Calamity Dragon!

Kieran’s Intuition sensed the rapid changes in Calamity Dragon’s body, so he knew what he should do. Although it hurt his heart immensely, it was better than death.

Kieran’s mind was clear, so he gave the order with his mind.

Creature of Desire stood tall, looking straight at Calamity Dragon. Its core eye shone first, followed by the main eye, the sub eye, and the derivative eyes.

When all eyes lit up, thousands of burning rays were fired out in union.

The night sky was lit up brightly and the target of the burning ray, Calamity Dragon, was blasted off instantly.

Creature of Desire purposely aimed at the roasted eye of Calamity Dragon. Even though Calamity Dragon controlled its flesh and bones to try to defend against the burning ray, it was still painful.

As one of Kieran’s trump cards, Creature of Desire was different from Transform Devil, which provided Kieran with all kinds of buffs. It’s only specialty was its many attacking targets.

Quantitative change incites qualitative change!

Back when Creature of Desire was still at a rookie level, it had already achieved desirable results and now reaching level IV, Creature of Desire was stronger than ever.

[Summoned Creature of Desire IV!]

[Name: Creature of Desire IV]

[Type: Summon]

[Rarity: Special]

[Attribute: 1. Desire Dominance IV, 2. Thousand Evil Eye Strike IV]

[Effect: Devour]

[Prerequisite: Fusion Heart]

[Remark: The shards of Eye of Chimeras fused with you flesh, blood and desire, and created this monster. Its strength and malefic nature could not be contained by the world!]

…

[Desire Dominance IV: Your deepest desires will be exposed before the Creature. It will be enlarged infinitely and turned it into a weapon against you. When you are facing the Creature of Desire, Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride seven types of irresistible authentication will occur, target who passed will be immune by the effect, target who fails will be punished by the respective sins.]

[Thousand Evil Eye Strike IV: Thousands of Evil Eyes possessed offensive abilities, each of them can fire a beam of burning ray, with attack authentication. The core eye has rank IV and above attack; the ten main eyes had rank III and above attack; the hundred sub eyes had rank II and above attack, and the rest of the derivative eyes had Advanced Rank attack. You can fire them all together at a single target all separately at different targets, 1 time per day.]

…

[Devour: When Creature of Desire devour the targets under the its effect or target that it kills, the power will transfer to the user as well]

[Note: Devour is a special trait, the targets that Creature of Desire kill will not drop any loots.]

…

After he saw the obvious Note, Kieran’s heart beat faster than usual, it even twitched but it didn’t stop him from ordering Creature of Desire to attack.

As Creature of Desire was releasing its burning rays, it rapidly closed the distance between Calamity Dragon.

“You monster! Get away from me!”

The bleeding and broken Calamity Dragon shouted. Creature of Desire extended its huge arms, grabbing Calamity Dragon’s head close to itself.

Creature of Desire started to spin, from slow to fast, and within a breath’s time, its rapid spinning created layers of afterimages in the crowd’s eyes.

Calamity Dragon was forced to spin as well, yet the rapid spinning from Creature of Desire failed to twist the robust neck off. Kieran sighed, giving up the last bit of hope in trying to fulfill his greed.

He was okay with feeding Creature of Desire rather than getting nothing at all in return but the failed attempt told Kieran Calamity Dragon was still very strong, stronger than he expected.

If Kieran did not trap Calamity Dragon in the void breath, this battle would get uglier as time passed. Unless he unleashed his final trump card, he would never win, and should he use his last trump card…

Kieran quickly discard the thought as it formed.

It wasn’t time! It wasn’t time!

Kieran changed his thought, the new thought in his mind becoming the order for Creature of Desire.

Creature of Desire spun even harder, in hopes of pushing Calamity Dragon into the void.

Before this, Calamity Dragon struggled to get back inside the void, but because of its posture, it was very difficult. Now, with the spinning force pushing it back, it was much easier, like an electric drill working. Calamity Dragon’s body was shrinking back into the void in exponential speed.

“Noo! Noooo!” Calamity Dragon shouted.

This wasn’t its desired outcome, it wanted Kieran to die with it. If it returned to the void, it would die alone! It was unacceptable!

Yet its soul was damaged, its body even more so. It tried to struggle but it was futile, especially in front of Creature of Desire’s huge spinning force. Calamity Dragon lost his last bit of hope.

All it could do was watch itself being pushed back into the void and Kieran robbed the last tiny bit of hope he had by ordering Bloody Mary to destroy the transportation magic formation the moment Calamity Dragon was forced back.

Bloody Mary carried out the order and the breach to the void was shut.

“I’LL CURSE…”

KABOOM!

Calamity Dragon’s voice stopped abruptly, a heavy but faint explosion coming from the void. Kieran could even spot a shallow crack in the sky, where the breach was.

Calamity Dragon’s self-destruct was absurdly powerful that it almost tore apart space itself, but it was only an ‘almost’.

The wall between space and void was stronger than anyone could imagine.

What appeared in Kieran’s vision next also surpassed his expectation.

[Authenticating player’s action…]

[Authenticated player’s action of killing a modern ancient being…]

[Special dungeon’s deterrent force +1]

[Acquired special title: Dragon Hunter (Modern Ancient Type)]

[Dragon Hunter (Modern Ancient Type): This is a special title, you will be well-received in some dungeon world, or expelled; Acquires +1 attack authentication towards Secondary, Hybrid, Apex Dragon, Elder Dragon, Modern Ancient Dragon Type. 1 time per day, player has the option to activate it or not.]

…

“Special title?” Kieran was stunned but before he could ponder upon the title, more words came.

[Player will leave the dungeon in 3 seconds]

[Please take whatever items you wish to keep with you.]

[Note: Any items that exceed the maximum weight will be discarded!]

…

This return time was faster than any other return, but Kieran was cheated once by the system, so he habitually carried every loot with him all the time. Even if he couldn’t get the loot the quickest, he would arrange something else to help him.

Therefore, even if he would return right away, he wouldn’t lose anything.

He turned around and waved at Drexton before vanishing.

[Special Dungeon: Hero and Villain II]

[Dungeon Difficulty: Medium High]

[Main Mission: Fend off all the malicious super criminals from the city within 12 weeks (The more you fend off, the higher the rating)]

[Mission Completion: 500% (Acquired rating: SSS)]

[Complete mission in advance: Rating SSS → Z]

[Battle performance: Very active (Rating Z → ZZ)]

[Exploration performance: Average]

[Special Rating 1: Stopped Calamity Dragon’s descension (Rating ZZ → V, Rep +5)]

[Special Rating 2: Indirectly killed Calamity Dragon (Rating V → VVV, Rep +10)]

[Player final rating VVV!]

[Calculating player’s final special dungeon reward…]

[Player’s final special dungeon reward as listed…]

[Points: 400,000; Skill Points: 70; Golden Skill Points: 7; Golden Attribute Points: 7]

[Acquired key item: Printon City Map (After destruction)]

[Acquired special dungeon: Hero and Villain III]

…

White light shone, Kieran returning to Wallway Street 13th again.

Bloody Mary and Frost Wolf appeared right behind him.

Bloody Mary was holding a book with a dark golden glow, smiling with flattery; Frost Wolf was biting a bead bracelet, wagging its tail happily.

The book was from the man named Luther in Printon City. The bead bracelet was from the black knight orchestrating the descent of Calamity Dragon, a nameless knight, or rather, Kieran didn’t know.

These two items were his important loots other than leveling [Fusion Heart] this trip.

Because of the region limitation, his loot this trip wasn’t a lot.

Aside from the consumed [Dark Golden Stone], there was [Imperfect Mordin Sculpture], [Explosion Stone], [Exorcism Arrow], and [Broken Io Mirror].

[Exorcism Arrow]’s usage counter has been used up, he’d need to recharge it.

[Broken Io Mirror] and [Dark Gold Stone] were consumed, converted into energy to fuel his divine flame.

Which left him with [Imperfect Mordin Sculpture] with the attribute [Moon Eclipse] and [Explosion Stone]. The items had value but they were impractical to raise his strength.

Therefore, Kieran had high hopes for the two extra loot he got from Bloody Mary and Frost Wolf.

Frost Wolf was thumping its paws, hence Kieran picked up the bracelet first.

The bracelet was formed by beads as big as olives, but black in color. Each bead was carved into a skull shape, a total of 12 beads stringed together, nothing else.

[Name: Soul Nether Beads]

[Type: ETC]

[Rarity: Above I]

[Attack: None]

[Defense: Above I]

[Attribute: 1. Soul Keep; 2. Soul Gu Breeding]

[Effect: None]

[Prerequisite: Mystical Knowledge (Master), Spirit I]

[Able to bring out of dungeon: Yes]

[Remark: During the papal era of Hero and Villain world, the cult scholars treated with utmost injust, their intact inheritance knowledge were broken and lost, the remaining knowledge were kept by intentional parties, transformed into a different kind of inheritance but in order to use said inheritance, one must have related knowledge and a strong will.]

…

[Soul Keep: Able to keep 1000 wandering souls, 100 evil spirits, 10 spectres (Current: 0)]

[Soul Gu Breeding; Through the method of Gu breeding, which was a traditional method of preparing poison with many venomous insects, the same methods were used on the souls. The wandering souls can eat and kill each other, therefore having a small chance of creating an evil spirit and even slimmer chance of creating a spectre.]

…

No doubt a very special item.

Has no attack but once put in good use, miraculous effect will follow.

Kieran commented on it objectively.

He then received the book from Bloody Mary.

It wasn’t a skill book, just a mere item.

[Name: Book of Curse]

[Type: ETC]

[Rarity: II]

[Attack: None]

[Defense: II]

[Attribute: You must read to find out the secret]

[Effect: None]

[Prerequisite: Mystical Knowledge (Master), Spirit II]

[Able to bring out of dungeon]

[Remark: One of the item passed down by the cult scholars, the Book of Curse is something more extreme. Read it to truly understand its secret.]

…

Kieran frowned at the Prerequisite of [Book of Curse].

He fitted the Spirit criteria but not the Master level [Mystical Knowledge].

Kieran got said skill through learning, so he knew how time-consuming it was.

Was a rank II [Book of Curse] worth his time?

He asked himself the question.

It was at this moment, his PM tab pinged him.

It was from Starbeck, the mimosa.