Boom!
Shrapnel punctured multiple hooded men.
'Tougher than I thought'
So much so that the more experienced seniors already took the battlefield in order to avoid the weaker and newer warriors dying a meaningless death.
Yujin alone had slaughtered multiple of these men down.
They always popped out of nowhere, disrupting his trace spell constantly.
'Still, he came through here?'
The pungent smell of sweat permeated through the corridor.
As Yujin looked around, seeing if any more of these random powerful enemies remained hidden. It wasn't long before he reached the entertainment district.
"Trafficking?"
Quite the random discovery, but why was Gaia here?
"Would he...partake in something like this?"
Gaia was quite ruthless and merciless but Yujin doubted he came here just to satiate lust.
'He's too cold-hearted to enjoy it'
If someone paid him a good sum to marry their daughter, then he might bite. But Yujin did not know what anyone could give to an Archmage to marry their daughter off to such a man.
As he was having those thoughts, a mouse-man spoke to him from the shadows.
"Sir"
He didn't look back, only rethinking his approach that even Gaia the Cold Metal might have sexual frustrations.
'No, if that was the case, go buy a courtesan, maybe not a famous one but... hold on, what if he likes it traditional?'
Seeing his serious face, the mouse-man only waited for Yujin to finish pondering whatever thoughts he held.
'Wait, what could traditional even mean?'
Maybe he preferred natural love at first sight?
'Is he...actually quite the romantic?'
Maybe he came here to destroy a place as disgusting as this because of personal preferences?
Yujin shook his head.
Finally taking notice of the mouse-man awaiting for his master's deep thinking to finalise, he spoke.
"Do you know what happened to this place?"
The mouse-man kneeled and recounted what he last saw.
"A monster?"
"Yes, to be precise. A demonic one"
Demonic monsters were naturally created beings, one couldn't become a demonic monster without being born under some conditions.
"Is it strong?"
The mouse-man gave a conflicting face. Seeing this, Yujin gave a guess to the air.
"Is it possibly both the weakest and strongest in this place?"
"Yes...."
'Very tricky to deal with then'
Yujin frowned, and the mouse-man continued.
"It appears to affect the mind, affecting those around it with the same feelings it harbors"
In other words, you were angry at a bird that shat on you? No worries, just go to this [specific demonic monster] and get yourself willingly brainwashed to make your anger increase tenfold at all bird species.
"I'll go, I have the highest mental resilience out of everyone here. You go check the other paths aside from this one"
The mouse-man bowed his head.
"Your wish is our commandment"
Disappearing into the wind, Yujin walked through all the rubble.
'The destruction is recent'
Very recent in fact, maybe not even 5 minutes had passed.
Along the rubble were human beings, women and men separated by a fine line.
'Weird'
Them being naked wasn't that weird. I mean in the first place, an evil organisation is an uncouth existence.
All of them were dead, but the weird part lay in the fact that they didn't seem to have died due to having countless people have their way with them.
Their cause of death seemed suspicious.
'This isn't an entertainment district, is it?'
The facilities seemed too poor and old too.
'There is also not enough space'
All in all, only mystery wafted in the air.
And getting closer to the victims would be the only way to find out more about what happened. So, as Yujin walked closer to the corpses of both man and woman, he immediately noticed something.
'Their necks, face, ears, are all nibbled and oozing with a strange liquid'
Reaching out a hand. Yujin casted the spell [Trace].
"Oh?"
The person or monster that caused this was not far away, in fact they were about 45 meters to south-east.
'Cause of death is unlikely to be sexual related, in other words....it has to be because of that monster'
As Yujin carefully muffled his steps with the 1st star spell [Cat's Walk], he stumbled on a small crater in the ruins of the traditional wooden mansion.
In the middle, a malformed man stood, staring and praying to the ceiling above.
Aaag!
The man roared a deafening screech, its jaw broke under the pressure.
Drip!
A droplet of purple liquid came crashing down to the ground. It's source, being Yujin's nose.
"..!"
The same liquid in the bodies he had found. But that wasn't what made him shocked.
'This, is it....weakening me?'
The weakening wasn't that much, but for a normal person. This kind of weakening would put them in the red in just 15 minutes of being exposed.
'So that's how they died?'
They had died from having their vitality constantly drained from a distance. Making the monster stronger and stronger with the more vitality it drained.
'I need to kill it'
If it lived for even a day longer, it could be catastrophic to the above. Thankfully, its range of effectiveness didn't seem to reach above ground.
Drip! Drip!
More droplets of purple fell.
As Yujin wiped his nose with his sleeve, he trudged towards the wailing man.
'Could it be a scent? And that is why its range is that low?'
Seeing that the body part first affected was his nose, it solidified his reasoning and deduction.
Step
His last step made him face the monstrosity in front.
'Seems like he is too focused on crying'
In other words, a chance to get a good hit in.
Shoving a hand into his pockets, he grabbed a cluster of crystals sewn together tightly.
[7-circle spell]
The cluster glowed and burned.
Dark Magic | Nihility |
Cracks formed on the cluster.
Shatter!
And it shattered into a million blackened crystal pieces.
A flash of light burst forth the moment it shattered, only for an instant however. Before total darkness pressed and flooded in from every side, even thoughts seemed to stop being visualised in this total darkness.
The darkness eventually receded and revealed the disfigured man lying on the floor, it writhed as it bled from the countless holes that riddled it.
Gaaaa!!!!
As it cried in pain, a staff whose head resembled a spiderweb pressed onto its head.
"Rest in the embrace of what the Afterlife presents"
Launching a basic spell, he finished and killed the monster by making sure not a single strike could be made or land.
'Gaia'
Yujin's face thrashed with rage.
"You're next"