( Meanwhile at the royal palace ) : at the crown prince chamber :
~Knock~ ~knock~
Come in .
Two fully equipped royal guards in golden colored armors entered the room and knelt directly on the ground as salute to the crown prince then they waited for him to give the permission to rise which he did after a second or two.
Tell me what the report says about what happened at the forest and to that Goblin Lord ? , he ordered them while he was having a deep frown on his face that was enough to terrify those two royal guards that they were actually trembling, maybe they were like this cause the kind of information they are able to access as a royal guards were more than the common and even some high ranking Adventurers and nobles.
They know how the crown prince can be when he was angry or upset of something, so seeing him frowning like this scared the both of them out .
Well ? .
His cold voice awakened them from their shocked state and dranched both of them in sweat, one of the two came forward and cleared his throat then get a scroll parchment out of his stortage pouch and began to read it out loud saying :
[ Greetings your majesty , we reclaimed the safe zone again and found the Goblin Lord and have a few exchange of blows and he was already at his limit for some reason, we began to see that our victory was on sight as we kept forcing him to retreat and his berserk state was beginning to recede but it happened then, an accident your majesty happened when we almost captured him , someone much stronger than us interfered with our battles and directly teleported the Goblin Lord from the battlefield, Lina tried to see if she could locate where he had been teleported to but it was futile and her skill even backlashed , the safe zone need to be rebuilt as every building was there was destroyed by either the flames or the goblins , and from the devastating scenery and the injuries on the head of the Goblin Lord that we found, we can be certain that someone fought before us against that abomination and either was killed or was able to retreat safely we don't have any information about that guy or the one who muddled in our mission whatsoever but we have guessed that the guy who stopped us might be an SSS individual but from which side we aren't sure, as for the other guy he killed mostly all the Goblin swarms in the area and cut their ears as a proof so we are almost 100 percent certain that he was a human Adventurer, that was all what we found your majesty and that's the end of our report , Leckor ].
Okay, you can go now and order the Adventurer's guild to give a handsome reward to all the participants in this operation and give Lina a Mana increasing potion and a chance to choose a magical skill book from the palace library under the Ultimate Rank , you are dismissed .
Who might be the one who interfered, he said and looked at the entity who was staying at the ceiling hovering and crossing her legs while closing her eyes as if she was mediating but sensing his gaze, she opened her eyes and said in a quite annoyed manner : this island isn't a suitable place for people with our strength and Rank to increase our power in, why are you looking at me like this are you tired of living ? .
Apperantly,she wasn't having the nicest mood, he hurriedly knelt down and said truthfully that he was looking at her wondering if she happened to know anything about who helped the Goblin Lord to escape .
Which she replied to by saying : i have no idea who might do this but big brother Blazan wasn't responsible for this, or at least he wasn't aware of it, but it might be the working of one of his subordinates, i'm not quite sure , but why does its fate matter to you that much do you believe that you could gain information about the new SSS Rank from it or were you planning on subduing it .
I have some thoughts about it , yes but i consider the information it had on that new SSS Rank individual to be more valuable , and i don't believe my seal of enslavement will work that well on it .
Hehe, you are very much right about that, it might even backlash and why would you need to add another S Rank monster under your command, don't you already have the four heroes who have the potential to reach SSS Rank , speaking of heroes how is everything going with that new hero Suki Hana , did you make any progress in trying to subdue here .
The seal didn't work as intended on her and i won't be able to try again any time soon since my half sister has now taken her under her wing, that girl can be quite the nuisance to our future plans .
She is really quite special and from the words you used to describe her status window , i would have suspected her to be the child that the shard choose as its herald but we already know that your sister was the one chosen by the shard as a candidate to be the child of the world .
You don't have to busy yourself with this, just complete what you are tasked with and when the time comes we will deal with her as we see fit but i might have a suggestion that could allow you to break his spirit enough for your skill to work on her .
Please do tell .
It's not a new plan i will just ask you to continue in the pursuit related to that lover of her and it will be better if he died in front of her eyes and coincidentally you have quite the chance to do so in the next MONSTER'S RAID , and that might do the trick and allow you to enslave here .
But what if he decided to pay the fine and didn't want to engage in fighting the monsters in the battlefield ? .
Will that be enough to stop you ? , she gave him a meaningful glance which he replied to by saying while shaking his head : no, it won't .
Youalreadyhavethat Kiba Sudo under your control and from the other four, the ones you should be aware of the most are Kiba Kuroya and that Takumi Sora since even i couldn't tell what was going inside that brain of hers .
Will do .
Be more careful, we are almost at the finishing line any mistakes now won't be tolerated, you understand ? .
Yes, i will do all that i can to meet your expectations, mistress .
( Scene change back to the Wicked Forest ) : In The Depth Of The Cave :
I was still focused on the creature in front of me when a hand suddenly patted me on the shoulder, i looked behind me to see a shadow figure like a silhouette of darkness of some sort saying that i should leave the creature be for his sake and that will earn me his gratitude .
I looked at the river of blood and saw that not even a drop of blood was left then i turned back to look at shadow figure still not turning around in his direction before i said in a deep voice under my mask : Why would i want a favor from someone who will die soon too .
I used Steal to get the last skill i wanted from the A Rank Kaiju-0 then after hearing the confirmation of the will of the world i aimed at his head and gave him a slap and just as i swung my arm the black void appeared again and a fraction of a second later the creature head exploded and the hand that was patting me just now also withdraw instantly, but unbeknownst to it my new skill allowed me to react to its sudden movement , i grabbed that hand and didn't let go .
I opened appraisal to know what was the effects of my new enhanced skill, not paying the thing in my hands any attention , the new skill went like this :
(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, boost the Agility while fighting by 1 time and the ability to counter attacks by 100% .
I now have a weird sense of peace and relief after getting rid of that creature,now all i have to do is beat that thing that was responsible for that blood river and i will be heading back to Trond to report the success of my hunting task and find a way to sell the monsters materials that i gathered and i really need to buy new clothes my attire is currently consist of the tattered pieces of my former clothes .
But with that out of the way, now i turned around and looked at the shadow silhouette before me but there was really nothing to actually see or say about it since it was as if he was wearing a black cloth that was covering him completely in it.
I looked at his hand or what i presumed to be his hands and found that it suddenly began to rot in my hand then disappeared, i was dumbstruck and looked at the silhouette in front of me but saw him moving backwards in try of making some distance between us .
I let him do what he wanted to do even though i could have stopped him if i wanted to but i still wanted to get some answers out of him before sending him in his way .
Sir, i already asked you to spare him on the basis that we BLOODLORDS will be in your debt .
I didn't like the haughty tone he was talking in and what were those Bloodlords, was he a vampire of some sort .
I'm sorry for my haughty tone but i'm speaking out of habit , i'm deeply sorry if i offended you it wasn't my intention at all and please don't associate us in the same group with those weak blood sucking bats.
I looked at him intently as i was quite certain that he replied to the questions that was lingering in my mind .
It is a race trait, i hope you don't ...… ~swoosh~ mind it , well that wasn't nice , dear sir .
Sorry it's the trait of my race, don't mind it .
I attacked him before waiting him to complete his sentence as i was already fed up with him and it wasn't even a full minute since we met but he was actually able to evade it by some kind of a weird movement .
What is the meaning of this dear sir ,i have no ill intentions towards your esteemed self but you attacked me, do you really believe i'm a pushover ? .
First you muddled into my affairs when you tried to stop me just now, second you intruded on my mind , third and most important reason your hands are filled with human blood and from the start i had no intention of letting you go so words are quite meaningless, won't you say ? .
Sir, you must be jesting , you are comparing yourself to those kettle like guys , someone with your strength can't be even allowed to exist in this domain's shard, i know you need to be discreet now that you are fully healed and since the world's will might target you again but you don't have to worry, i made my minions massacre everyone under that was under that shard influence, so you are free to say what you want and there will be no consequences on you , and with my blood dome outside we are shielded completely.
I kept staring at him in silence and that was enough to make him agitated as he began to sweat and i can already tell that he was wondering about what my next action could be but he tried one last time to persuade me into not attacking him by saying :
Sir, there isn't any benefits to gain from fighting me and if you aren't carful you might get injured by me making you an easy prey to the others who came here to try to get their hands on that shard, and as you should already be aware that this isn't even my real body, this is merely a clone that was currently working as a projection of my will, so destroying it won't really kill me but it will put you at odds with us Bloodlords .
What was he even talking about, shard, clone working as a projection, the prying eyes of the Will Of The World, healing from injuries, Bloodlords, what is exactly going on here , i no longer cared about how or why he created those monsters as i already have some guesses and new questions arose instead, i was still trying to organize the pieces of informations that i was able to gather from his words but they were all vague .
So you said that this is merely a clone of yours so do you mind telling me where were your real body currently staying at ? .
The thing took a breath of relief thinking that he was already spared and attributed it to the face of the Bloodlords in the outside world, the real world as he sighed and began on saying :
just like you senior, i'm currently staying in the Real World , the Domain Of Blood and in the section of Chaotic Spheres ,we are the third most powerful powerhouse in the region , we will be more than happy for you to visit us sometimes .
Oh,i never heard of that region of yours and never heard of your Bloodlords race too .
My words left him dumfounded to the point that i felt the thing he was hiding in began to shook, so it was quite apperant that my words left him perplexed , then after some hesitation he began asking :
Which region are you from, sir ? .
You aren't worthy to hear its name .
Is that so, could you at least tell me how many Rulers and emperors your esteemed race currently had ?.
I pointed at him with my sword and said :
didn't you understand what i said before, you aren't worthy to know about this .
And that gesture of mine shut him up directly and the whole scene fell in silence , but it didn't last much as i broke it with a question that was on my mind :
you just now mentioned others, what did you mean by that ?.
Those Filthy Demons , and the high ranking Monsters those were the guys that i encountered when i arrived here, and they are all here with one target in mind, trying to get their hands on that Shard .
What exactly is that Shard , and what could it possibly do .
I'm really beginning to wonder whether you are really from the Real World or are you an intruder from another domain , our talk here is finished , see you .
Just kidding, you better not let me see you outside of this shitty island otherwise it will be your end , Hahaha .
He said as he began hovering in the air and was about to flee, so i guess those messy information was all that i was able to get out of him , but they were enough to know that something dangerous was brewing In this world , something that could possibly destroy the lives of every creature out here .
~Swoosh~ i turned on the Obsidian Armor and directly appeared above the trying to escape figure and swept him with my sword but this time he wasn't able to parry it like the previous time since with how fast i appeared , i didn't give him any chance to react to the attack .
But instead of feeling the impact of my strike after it made contact with him, i weirdly felt as if i hit a cloud of smoke and it was very much true since he was able to somehow dismember his body at the moment of impact to barley escape being smashed into the ground but i will still label my attack as a success since i forced him to land back on the ground .
Do we really need to have a trifle here of all places senior, if we both unleash much strength we might be discovered by the Shard's Will , and this won't be beneficial to the two of us .
Said the creature that was still covered in the black cloth but his words reminded me of the mysterious World's Will and what enforced this weird thought of mine even more was the previous encounter with it when i used Obsidian Armor, after all it did say something about terminating the threat , so could this Shard be actually the World's Will or was it just a weird coincidence .
I still didn't reply to him and just raised the sword in my hand and horizontally slashed towards him using 100 percent of my strength and the scene that happened was quite something, there was no black void appearing like before but instead it was as if in a fraction of a second a door opened swallowing the attack of mine and a fraction of a second later, i heard someone screaming in pain.
AAAARRRRGGggggg .
I looked at the enemy ahead of me and was able to see him more clearly now than before he was still covered in the thing from earlier but the last attack of mine dealt some obvious damage to the item which he was wearing and some of his skin were now exposed at the shoulders and the abdomen, the skin of the thing in front of me was pale white skin akin to blue more than white .
What surprised me that there was a big scar now at his abdomen but no blood came out of , it could it be related to his current body being that of a clone something like a puppet but he was still able to feel pain, weird and the hand that he lost earlier was there as if it was never got any damages .
A few seconds later the exposed skin began to again be covered by the black cloth he was wearing and my eyes lit up brilliantly at this scene .
A piece of cloth that was capable of self repairing , i want it so bad .
You are eying the veil of shadows with your greedy eyes but let me just tell you that it is an artifact given to me by the emperor itself, so even if you defeated me here you better not be thinking about having it .
I don't care what is your emperor going to do and how will he react after i take this out of your cold corpse , but i developed some interest to that item of yours .
MyCold corpse, hahaha that's the funniest thing that i have ever heard and for the sake of making me laugh, i will use your blood to heal myself even more and who knows maybe i will be even getting stronger .
Thenext attack won't be aiming at your abdomen but at your head .
Why don't you take a closer look at that sword of yours before making such a big threat , so tell me how are you exactly going to attack my head .
My Frosted Edge sword actually broke i was currently only holding what remained of the sword the handle with no trace of the other broken parts maybe they have been lost in the space inside that weird door, my very first weapon .
Why someone of your caliber was going around with such a useless weapon that wasn't able to bear with your strength .
You did well, frost, you were the most cool weapon that i have ever had and the first one at that, rest well companion .
You have to be k....
~ Boom ~ i didn't give him a chance to speak as i directly went to him and sent him crashing into the wall but that veil of him saved him .
I believe that i didn't ask your opinion, did i ? .
No, you really didn't, but how are you going to finish me without a weapon are you that certain about your strength , and don't forget the defensive item of mine .
Yes, that could indeed give me a bit of trouble but believe it or not, YOU ARE GOING DOWN AND YOU ARE HANDING THAT CLOTH OF YOURS TOO .