Chapter 246: You Made One Mistake

"Don’t start with me!" The cloaked lady snapped. She dropped from the thick canopy above, her boots hitting the damp forest floor with a heavy thud that sent a shockwave through the dead leaves.

?"Did you get her?" she asked, rising to her full height and turning toward the hulking figure standing in the shadows.

?The man was a mountain of muscle wrapped in a thick, Divine-Tier cloak that seemed to drink the ambient light around him.

?"Yeah, this black-skinned monster is good at hiding... She escaped the battle, but fell into our hands." He jerked a massive thumb over his shoulder, pointing at the humanoid, black-skinned monster pinned to the base of a rotting oak tree.

?"Thank you."

?"...?!"

?The SSS-RANK monster stared up at the two towering figures, her chest heaving as she sweat buckets.

?’I escaped to save my life, how did I end up with these two Ex-Rank monsters?!! Isn’t this going too far?!!’ she thought frantically, her survival instincts screaming as the cloaked lady stepped calmly before her and stretched an arm forward.

?"What are you going to do?!! Please don’t kill me!!" The creature shrieked in absolute horror, thrashing against her invisible bindings.

?"I got injured by the sealing cage, I need to replenish the part of my soul I sacrificed," The cloaked lady stated coldly.

?Instantly, her outstretched hand began glowing with a sickly, corrupted light. Thick, barbed red tentacles shot out from her palm like vipers, plunging violently straight into the black monster’s chest.

?"Ahh!!! No!!! I don’t want to die!!! I don’t...."

?Her desperate screams died down rapidly into a wet, suffocated gargle. The monster’s body began to wither at a terrifying speed, her skin shrinking and tearing as all vital fluids and soul essence were violently siphoned away. Within seconds, the creature completely dried up, leaving nothing behind but a fragile heap of dust-covered bones.

?"That is much better." The cloaked lady breathed out, a wave of dark vitality flushing back into her body. She slowly opened and clenched her fist, listening to the crack of her joints as she felt her full strength returning to its absolute peak.

The muscular man crossed his massive arms, watching the bones crumble.

"I knew Aurora’s ability is strong, but I didn’t know it also caused the captive to sacrifice their soul."

?".....?!!"

?Both Ex-Rank powerhouses instantly froze. The temperature in the clearing seemed to drop ten degrees.

?They snapped their heads sharply toward a distant tree, their combat instincts flaring violently as they watched a young man with black hair and golden eyes casually step out from absolute stealth, standing effortlessly on a thin tree branch.

?"....?!"

?"How did you get here?!" The muscular man yelled in sheer shock, his muscles tensing for immediate combat.

?Asher merely stared down at them, a slight, calculating frown on his face as the system’s interface flooded his vision with glowing text:

?{Name: Sumino Yagami.}

{Rank: Ex-Rank.}

{Gears: Cloak of Darkness (Divine-Tier).}

{Combat Strength: Current: 800m. (Peak: 1.1B).}

?’Huh? This lady is a whole one hundred million stronger than me... Seems Aurora’s cage dealt her some serious damage,’ he thought, clinically evaluating her weakened state before flicking his golden gaze over to the hulking man.

?{Name: Zachary Devo.}

{Rank: Ex-Rank.}

{Gears: Cloak of Darkness (Divine-Tier).}

{Combat Strength: 800m.}

?’These guys are strong... They are humans, but I don’t think they belong to any Ancient family. Their energy signature is entirely too dark, too completely detached from the gods.’ He deduced, moving his gaze around his surroundings to ensure they hadn’t laid any spatial traps.

?’Thanks to her blood, I could use Soul Link to track her location... Otherwise, it wouldn’t be this easy.’

?"Answer my question!! How did you find us?!" The man roared. His dark aura burst out from him in a violent shockwave of localized gravity, immediately creating deep, splintering cracks across the trunks of the surrounding ancient trees.

?"Hold your aura, Fifth, remember Lord Raze’s words," Sumino whispered sharply, throwing a hand up to block Zachary’s chest. She was entirely unaware that Asher’s perception could clearly hear a pin drop a mile away, let alone her hushed words.

?"But Third, we need..."

?"...No... I am not strong enough yet; besides, the time we are meant to meet isn’t due," she cut him off with absolute authority, before tilting her hooded head to address Asher directly.

?"Aetheldawn family’s head, we will meet again; I don’t know how you located us, but there won’t be a second time."

?She opened her palm with lightning speed. The moment an ornate, silver-framed mirror appeared hovering above her hand, it violently exploded into a blinding, searing flash of celestial light, spreading all over the forest and temporarily erasing the very concept of vision.

?High on the branch, Asher didn’t flinch. He only narrowed his eyes, clearly watching through the celestial glare as the spatial fabric warped and the two figures vanished from the brightness. He calmly closed his eyes, actively channeling his energy into his tracking skill.

?’Fools, if Soul Link were still a Heaven-Tier skill, you could hide, but it’s now a Divine-Tier skill. You can’t outrun a mark attached to your very existence.’ Asher thought. In the next microsecond, he vanished from the tree, leaving behind only a rustling branch.

__

?[One hundred miles away.]

?High above the cloud layer, the wind howled as two dark streaks tore through the sky, putting immense distance between themselves and Silverspire.

?"Third, I understand you’re thinking about the leader’s words, and don’t want to engage in a fight with him, but... Why aren’t we returning to the base?" Zachary asked, flying shoulder-to-shoulder beside Sumino.

?"There is something strange around that guy... I can’t see through him," Sumino said, her voice laced with rare paranoia. Beneath the shadow of her hood, her eyes glowed faintly.

?"Huh? What’s that ahead of us?"

?Both Ex-Rank threw on the brakes, the force friction igniting the air around them as they came to a dead stop midair. They stared in absolute horror at the man who already stood calmly in the sky before them, his arms casually crossed behind his back.

?"How did you get here?!!"

?They both yelled in unison, frozen in place by the sheer impossibility of his speed and tracking.

?"Tell me, who is your master, and what is your goal...?" Asher asked flatly, his golden eyes piercing right through them.

?"What a foolish thing to ask, have you ever seen someone who will answer such a question?" Sumino asked, regaining a fraction of her composure.

?"Sumino Yagami, and Zachary Devo... Your leader’s name is Raze."

?"....?!"

?The two froze in unadulterated shock, their auras wildly fluctuating.

?"Third, how did he know our true names?" Zachary asked, utterly dumbfounded.

?"I have no idea, but he put a mark or something on us; even the blinding mirror, a Celestial-Tier artifact, can’t disrupt his senses... But... You made one mistake," she said to Asher. Slowly raising her head, the wind caught her hood, revealing her striking face and her two glowing purple eyes, each featuring a perfect, glowing star serving as her pupils.

?"What is my mistake?" Asher asked, unfazed.

?"No one is allowed to mention our leader’s name; once you do, he will sense it... In short, he will intervene."

?BOOOOM!!!

?The exact moment her words dropped, the very fabric of the world screamed. The blue sky above them literally split open, a colossal tear in reality exposing the dark void beyond. From the abyss, a gargantuan, terrifying hand dropped from the sky, descending directly toward Asher. With it came an unknown, apocalyptic amount of atmospheric pressure that instantly crushed the clouds into vapor and made gravity feel a thousand times heavier.

?’The fuck!! How can a hand be this powerful?!!’ Asher gritted his teeth, the bones in his body groaning against the sheer weight of the descending god-like presence.

?Refusing to be crushed, he stretched his hand upward toward the descending palm as apocalyptic golden flames ignited in his palm and shot upward like a localized solar flare, slamming directly into the center of the giant hand.

?BOOOOM!!!!

?The collision shook the stratosphere, but as the smoke cleared, the system’s notification unceremoniously materialized in Asher’s vision:

?{Damage: 0.}

?".....?!!"

?Asher blinked, floating mid-air, utterly flabbergasted.