A few seconds later after that friend of their took his last breath , i told Blade to give me the mask he wore before and he complied instantly and throw the mask in the air and i caught it easily and silently , i have to say by removing wind resistant i'm now more than capable of moving quickly and swiftly too .
even if i moved at inhuman speed the wind around me would stay still around me as if i was just walking .
The stunt that i just pulled off earned a few gasps from the crowd around me and a twitching body was the reaction i got from Blade, i guess before he was just confused about how much strength did i have exactly but now the little bit of defiance that was still in his eyes disappeared completely .
And it was now replaced by a desperate expression and a hollowed eyes devoid of all emotions , i guessed that the state he in was because he finally realized how severe his situation was and even if he tried to force his way out the great difference in strength won't allow him to do so, so yeah any idea that he had before about escaping was now squished throughly .
I caught the mask and without wasting a second, i used Appraisal to figure all the information available about it and it went like this :
Name : Second Skin .
Type : magical tool .
Rank : Uncommon .
Effects :
1- Hide the user aura from being detected by 100% .
2- Reduce damage by 100% by the place covered by the piece .
3- ( Mimick ) (Active skill) : using this skill allow Second Skin to have the ability to mimick faces that it had seen before by consuming continuous Mana points, the skill can be turned off in any time .
The cost : 10 mana points to activate the skill and 1 point for each minute the skill is used .
the duration : 100 minutes .
Cooldown : 15 minutes .
I was about to close the window that appeared but then i noticed another part written under the cooldown period of the skill it said History of the item , so i was genuinely curious about the new feature of Appraisal i presumed so i began to read what was written about the item in my hand .
History of the item : Second Skin was once a Rare Rank item known as Materializing Form, it was given to an Elemental as a declaration of love, a gift given to him by his love who was a female blacksmith but sadly their romance failed to bloom and that was because the said elemental failed to take a form which resulted in his core exploding and he died directly after .
Phew, that wave of sadness came out of nowhere, at least it didn't say anything about it being cursed or something alike i put the mask on and it was the design which attracted me in the first place, the effects and the active skill were bonuses .
But why did it fell off the Rare Rank and become uncommon, did the mask suffered some damages from the explosion as well, and what or who was that Elemental exactly , his core exploding was enough to demote an item Rank, still before i began to wonder around aimlessly with these kind of thoughts i need to remember that all those were a hypothesis of mine that have yet to be confirmed .
I opened up my status window quickly to see if there have been any changes in my attributes especially the Comprehension and Agility but saw no change in both of them and that meant that my new unique skill didn't work or more specifically the skill didn't deem any of those guys as a target and why shouldn't it, from the beginning no one of those guys had the nerve to strike at me or even the intention of attacking blindly hoping that one strike could by luck land on me , no they give up completely and from the start too which means that to get the benefit of that unique skill, i will have at least meet a strong opponent or at least a courageous one but that will wait to be tested to .
I changed my face to that middle aged bald comrades of them and appeared beside Blade and asked him about why was the former owner of this face looking more scared of meeting the Kaiju-0 than death .
Something i noticed after i used mimick not only can i be able to use the faces of people that i have seen before but that my tone was actually the same as the way they spoke , as i was currently able to speak like that slained man from before but the drawback is that i can't mimick the shape of their bodies so my current body was still as before and only my head and face had become like that dead man .
He looked at me silently for a while but i was able to see him clenching his fist behind his back for a few seconds before calming down as he began on saying : sir, you doesn't know much about Kaiju-0 monsters , do you .
I believe that is why i asked you, right .
Cough cough, sorry sir if i overstepped my boundaries .
I'm still waiting for the answer, today if possible, hurry and tell me what you know about them already .
Right away sir, Kaiju-0 are called as such by the soldiers not only because their chimera like appearances , but more related to their role on the battlefield, they are freaks of nature no one know how exactly they increase their numbers but 14 years ago when the first of those monsters appeared on the battlefield, we all thought that it was some unique monster or endanger species of the Wicked Forest but no the next raid that happened after had 300 hundred of them in it, as for what exactly their role on the battlefield that is when the real madness begin .
Kaiju-0 on the battlefield don't distinguish between the foes and allies they attack anything that move towards them or even neer them and there was a saying circling around them in different cities here in The Kingdom of Troland that their heads are empty which mean they were supposed to be dumb , but people who encounter them on the battlefield know that ain't no way that those creatures are dummies .
Sorry for the long introduction but i thought you wanted a full picture on the Kaiju-0 dear sir .
Hurry up and finish what you were saying, what make you think that they have intelligence ? .
You see sir, on the battlefield if there an S Rank monster and a Kaiju-0, the adventurers will always choose the S Rank monster since the S Rank monster would at most kill them in on shot and then they will be done with them , but the Kaiju-0 are something else entirely .
Ahem .
Sorry sir, i will get into it, the Kaiju-0 tend to play with their victims on the battlefield where monsters and men are fighting for their life on , those guys treat the battlefield as if it was their hunting grounds , they will kidnap human adventurers then they release them again but with some expenses and those expenses mostly consist of one limb at a time and after they feel bored with the human they choose they would then kill the human and go pick another one to start the cycle all over again .
As for why i said they might have some intelligence, it's because recently they began to set traps for the new Adventurers in the wicked forest .
I even heard a rumour that in the demon king territory those monsters have their own piece of land that no other monsters dear to come near , all of those are quite big problems but the biggest of those problems is apparently the way they move together in packs, so even if you tried to hunt one of them, you will still have to be prepared to take the full pack on , and i swear those were all the informations that i know about those damn monsters .
I just nodded and it eased my heart a little to remember that i was going against a monster among monsters just a minutes after being summoned, i then sighed and began looking around me since i felt a shift in the air just now, weirdly enough this part of the Wicked Forest was actually lit by a Mana lamps all over it , but i noticed that since we got here all the other guys were twitching and their bodies were beginning to shook, and that could only mean one thing , we have arrived to our destination .
Now, i understood a little bit their reactions the air in this area was dark and heavy as if it hold great heavy weights inside and the wind was whistling in a weird tone as if it was cursing at us or at the Wicked Forest itself, and there was a weird smell that i recently got family with and even got accustomed to , it was The Smell Of Bloodshed .
Weird enough the scene around us changed completely again just after a few more steps, the scene we were in now consist mostly of red smoke and weird looking red trees that had some blood and pieces of flesh covering most of them, a lot of pools of blood, and a deadly silent that was only broken by the screaming voices of what i presumed to be these monsters victims.
This was just a horde and they were still able to change the scenery of the place to one that looks like it came out from a horror movie, i turned around and looked at the faces of those despairing Adventurers behind me, twitching and unsure of what were they even going to do here but that was what scared them even more , the unknown.
I looked at blade and told him to inform me about the best way that i could use to rule those things out and he looked at me with a stunned face and then began to look at his comrades who were currently shaking their heads and some of them even began to cry, he stood still like that for a whole minute.
But he answered in the end saying : Kaiju-0 prefer to hunt so we could go and capture a few preys for them to hunt , a living bait that what we would need to lure them in .
A living bait, okay then your mission and each one of you mission is to get me at least one Kaiju-0 monster before dawn and i will then let you be .
What are you talking about sir shouldn't we be finding living bait for them first....
Before he even finish what he was saying my blade took his whole arm this time as he began to scream in pain.
I paid him no remorse, and again raised my voice for all of them to hear and said : He said i need a living bait to lure a Kaiju-0 in so now each one of you will act as such, and each one of you is now tasked with the mission of luring at least one Kaiju-0 in, each.
They all collapsed on the ground sobbing and bowing down to me pleading to not to do this,i again paid them no mind and used my Healing Magic on the now suffering from pain Blade, i healed his arms and as he was about to thank me, i severed his whole arm once more, everyone watching were stunned by what was occuring in front of them , even Blade who should have been in pain was so shocked that he forgot about the pain for a few seconds then collapse on the ground and began whimpering again.
I again used Healing Magic and fixed his state, then did the same thing again and again for approximately 5 times, as i didn't really focus on counting the times.
And looked at those guys on the ground and said : I believe what you said wholeheartedly but you see the task i gave you still remained the same, i have no doubts about how dangerous those creatures could be but i believe between me and them you already have a clear answer on your heart and mind.
You are going to be the living bait for those monsters, or else you will be my plaything until i got bored of you and decide to finish you myself,or you can take your chances with those Kaiju-0 monsters and try to lure them in for me, i want to say the choice is yours but then i will be lying ,and i'm not a lier.
Blade was the first to nod weekly as he lost all his previous demeanor and was now even sacred to look me in the eyes.
The other were lamenting their luck and cursed at each other for a bit before they also nodded and began to steady themselves for what were they about to do.
As they took a few steps i told them that they better believe that i'm always watching so if one or more decided to escape, he won't get another chance to join the hunt and will be suffering the consequences of his actions directly, and that it was better for them to act individually as i believe the dawn is already upon us.
They all grouped together and began to march , and i also began looking for the strongest Kaiju-0 that i could be able to encounter here , still having a close distance to keep an eye on all of them.
I don't know why was i doing this, all that was known to me was that my heart was telling me that the world would get better if those guys and who are just like them were to be gone but i was still founding difficulties in taking things into my own hands,so i believe those monsters will be of assistant in this depart .
I kept on noticing that from time to time i heard a few howling sounds and saw that the Adventurers party had some veterans that quickly told the others to position themselves and to be aware of the incoming attacks , and they were right as not even 10 seconds had passed and a 7 meters monster which looked like a lizard of some sort appeared and breathe fire towards the group of men in front of me that resulted in 2 of the initial 11 men to lose their lives .
Blade began to make a direct order for them to disperse in the woods and try to escape but that didn't matter to me much since i was able to tell that we were all surrounded by 6 to 7 of those monsters .
A few seconds later the bustling scene of the monsters attacking and the Adventurers party fending or at least trying to fell into a deathly quiet with no other survivors other than Blade Stills who i left alive on purpose , since i believe he still didn't suffer enough still , as for the rest of the fleeing members they were now in the bellies of those monsters, i caught him who was currently unconscious and headed deeper in the area till i saw what appeared to be some red cave entrance decorated by a large amount of blood and enough amount of skulls and bones to build a castle with and throw Blade in front of the cave and landed beside him and woke him up .
He woke up and looked me in horror, i was now only wearing the mask on my now returned to normal face and asked hysterically : why did you do all of this, what have we ever done to be treated like this.
I looked at him strangely and said : What did you do , do you really want me to remind you guys of the atrocities that you committed before , and why bother asking about this, your life will be over in 3 to 4 minutes.
He fell silent for a bit and asked : who the hell are you ? .
Oh, we have met before alright, i'm the man who you called A Big Fish half an hour ago , i then removed the mask to allow him to look at my face which was currently emotionless with nothing but a pair of piercing cold eyes looking down on him .
You, you , ... .
Yeah, yeah, it's me, i guess you already know what you did .
But, how are you this strong, it have been only two days, you must have accepted the help of monsters yes that's it, after i return to Trond, i will .... I will report you .
A soft chuckle came out involuntarily at his words, or let me say his last ones as apparently the monster we were waiting for was also waiting here for us as i felt some movements in the cave and a huge head began to come out from the cave , i used Appraisal on it and the result left me baffled .
-------------------------------------------------- .
Kaiju-0: The Centalion .
Rank: A .
---
Attributes :
- Strength: 900 .
- Stamina: 800 .
- Agility: 650 .
- Mana: 400 .
- Spirit: 100 .
---
Hidden Attributes:
- Constitution: 150.
- Will: 40.
- Luck: 43.
- Fate: 10.
- Spirituality: 50.
- Comprehension: 70.
---
Skills :
(Cataclysmic Howl) (Active Skill) :
The Centaurion releases a fearsome roar that echoes through the land, have 20% chance of instilling terror in the hearts of its enemies within a 15-meter radius ,the frightened enemies suffer a reduction of their attacks and movement by 10% for a short duration.
Duration : 10 seconds .
Cooldown : 10 minutes .
---
(Rending Fang) (Active Skill):
The Centalion chimera lunges forward, attempting to bite down on its target, If it connects, this attack inflicts severe damage and has a chance to cause a terrifying fear effect could be compined with the effect of Cataclysmic Howl, making the target hesitate in their next action.
---
(Cobra Tail Strike) (Active Skill):
With impressive speed, the Centalion performs a series of rapid tail strikes, each designed to hit multiple enemies in its vicinity. This skill deals damage to all affected enemies and can leave them dazed, 10% chance in stunning enemies .
---
(Armored Hide) (Passive Skill) :
The Centalion's scales provide a natural defense against physical attacks. Each time it successfully avoids damage, the scales harden increasing their resistance to both physical damage and magical damage by 5%, the granted temporary damage resistance strengthens with each attack successfully avoided .
---
(Hunter's Instinct) (Passive Skill) :
The Centaurion possesses an intrinsic awareness of its surroundings as a well-versed hunter . When an enemy attempts a sneak attack or tries to evade, it instinctively anticipates their movement, enabling a swift counteraction that allows it to strike first with enhanced accuracy, increase the Agility while fighting by 5% and the ability to counter attacks by 5%.
---------------------------------------------------- .
I find myself now smirking , yes it was bigger but still the same damn monster i once so, his attributes and skills gave me quite the impression .
It was almost close to being promoted to S Rank monster suddenly as if it was already losing its limited amount of patience it howled in my and Blade direction the latter from the loud howl almost lost his conscious, terrified at how close we were to that monster .
Goodbye, Blade , I told him and throw him over in the air, as the Centalion leaped in the air and caught him with his mouth and swallowed him in his belly directly , then licked his huge mouth and looked at me .
For some unknown reason i was actually smiling at the creature looking at me as if i was a delicy, then after i appeared suddenly on top of him i said one word in his direction and that word was :
Steal .