Chapter 63: Alchemist Of Death
"That Bastard Kid!!"
Scar face screamed, striking a tree with her leg, the force throwing the ice on it to the ground. The sudden mutation of the dungeon, bathed in that ominous red light, had completely shattered whatever composure she had left.
"He actually used stealth and killed everyone! Then turned them into his puppets! What a sick Bastard!!" She yelled, throwing a punch, striking the tree again in rage.
"Stop venting your anger on that innocent tree, if you are so angry, go and kill him, besides, I suspect he’s not a kid just using the appearance." The man in a suit said; one side of his glasses was shattered, while the other was intact. He kept his voice remarkably level, calculating their dwindling odds of survival in this mutated hellscape.
"He now has close to 5 SS-RANK with him, and the rest are S-Rank and A-Rank... How do you expect me to fight him!!" She yelled, and pointed at the sky, where the bloodred sun hung like a grim reaper’s eye:
"Not only that, this dungeon has gone crazy! I suspect he’s the one who mutated this dungeon, just to trap us all here!!" She added, her voice cracking with the strain of absolute despair.
"Why are you always yelling? You should know our line of work, don’t trust anyone because you will always be stabbed in the back... That kid, with a second glance, he doesn’t look like us, insufficient people who come from the slums, he seems like someone from a noble family." He explained, relaxing on the boulder. His cynical acceptance of the world’s hierarchy mirrored the very same prejudices Asher had endured his entire life. The elite families played a different game, using lives like disposable pawns.
"Hey!! How dare you call me insufficient?!!"
"Zip it!! What were we before? We don’t have anything to our name, we are only Bounty Hunters." He jumped down from the boulder, as his keen senses picked up a shift in the frozen air:
"We have some guests... Maybe focus your anger on them."
GRAAA...
Scar face turned her gaze to the sound, seeing a white fur wolf standing some distance from them. She blinked, as more walked out, easily surrounding the place. Their eyes glowed with a rabid, mutated hunger induced by the Devil Ground buff.
"They are a total of 30 S-Rank Wolves." He slowly removed his eyeglasses, his gaze cold, recognizing that they were entirely outnumbered and structurally at a disadvantage.
"Alright then! I am pretty angry right now, killing these monsters would help." She said, drawing her dagger, as poison wrapped around it.
"Yeah."
The two stood, their backs facing each other, as the wolves moved closer. They were cornered, but years of surviving the brutal underworld had forged them into deadly veterans.
AWOOOL!!
BAM!
The whole 30 wolves shot forward, a tidal wave of snapping jaws and frostbitten claws.
"Poison Domain!!"
BOOM!
A wave of green poison mist burst out from her, spreading all over the place. The dense, acidic fog melted the snow and ate away at the surrounding trees, instantly forming a lethal perimeter.
"Hey!! Are you planning to take me down too?! You’re immune to poison element, but what about me!?!" He snapped at her, coughing as the fringes of the toxic cloud brushed against his clothes.
"Quiet down, I can control the toxicity in my domain, besides, you’re a wind Archer, which is strong against my poison." She muttered, and vanished inside the green gas, using her element as a perfect smokescreen to assassinate the blinded wolves.
’Fuck! I can’t even see anything... I will have to leave this mist.’
He thought, and leaped into the air, using his wind element to propel himself above the toxic smog, hoping to find a clear vantage point. He breached the canopy of the poison, only to see Asher moving down towards him. The man clad in the Dark King Judgement armor was dropping from the sky like a silent, inescapable executioner.
"THIS?!!"
WHOOSH!!!
"....?!"
Scar face turned around; she could clearly see everything in her domain, but she detected no one. Her spatial awareness was entirely useless against a Divine-Tier stealth ability. She blinked, staring at the beheaded body of the man, which had just plummeted back into her toxic fog.
"Huh? A wolf can also behead someone?"
WHOOSH!!!
"....?!"
Asher walked away, as her body fell to the ground dead. The space-splitting sword had cleanly severed her spine before her brain could even register the threat. The moment the poison cleared, the wolves rushed towards the two bodies, and started tearing them apart, entirely ignoring the phantom that had just effortlessly slaughtered their prey.
Asher snapped his fingers, and a ball of dark fire made from Aether energy appeared, which he tossed towards the wolves. He felt no remorse; they were simply collateral damage in his path to absolute supremacy. The moment it came in contact, the whole place exploded, turning both the bodies and wolves into ashes.
[You killed 30 S-Rank Ice Wolves.]
[Gained 30 A-Rank Evolution stones.]
Asher wasn’t bothered about the evolution stones, he already accepted the stupid drop rate. Dungeons were designed to gatekeep resources, forcing Awakened to grind for years—a restriction he bypassed entirely by investing in his wives.
[Gained 15 Equipments.]
[Gained 1 Skill Book.]
[Gained Wolf Fur: 30x. Wolf tooth: 30x.]
’15 Equipments, with the drop rate, they should be Earth-Tier, or even below that. To ordinary people, this equipment is precious, but to me? Well, they’re useless. I will simply select the good ones, and maybe gift my wives the rest to gain some better ones.’ His thoughts were strictly pragmatic, constantly calculating how to leverage the System’s multiplier mechanics for exponential growth.
He brought up his inventory, and swiped through the equipment; true to his word, they were only Earth-Tier, and below. Even the skill was Earth-Tier. Asher sighed disappointedly, switching off the screen. He was hunting for Divine and Mythic items now; this low-level loot was beneath him.
"The Bear Boss only gave me one skill that made sense."
{Explosion Fire: Create a fireball with your current energy. The damage dealt is calculated by the purity of your energy. Celestial-Tier skill.}
{Current energy: Aether. Purity: 9,999%.}
{When fireball is created, it deals 500% of user’s Magical attack damage to all enemies caught in it, ten minutes cooldown.}
’It is a powerful skill, and it also has area of effect damage... Not bad.’ He thought, and vanished into the shadows, his base Magical Attack stats turning that 500% multiplier into a weapon of mass destruction.
’The true Boss should be ahead... And with their words, that kid already turned the rest into his puppets. The Boss will take care of him.’ He thought, allowing the necromancer and the mutated dungeon to bleed each other out while he reaped the final rewards. He then paused, turning his head to the side, his enhanced senses picking up a massive fluctuation in energy.
BAM!!
The trees shook as a five-meter-tall white Wolf walked out from the forest depths, staring at the destruction left behind. It sniffed the Aether-scorched earth, recognizing the scent of an apex predator invading its territory.
[Name: Ice Wolf.]
[Class: Normal Boss.]
[Rank: SS-Rank.]
[Agility: 120,000.]
[Energy: 80,000.]
[Defense: 100,000.]
[Health Point: 100,000.]
[Physical Attack: 100,000.]
[Magical Attack: 70,000.]
[Skill: Lets out a roar which blocks out the six senses of anyone caught in it for ten seconds.]
’Block out the whole six senses? If that happens, even if it’s for just ten seconds, you’ll be dead.’ Asher analyzed the lethal mechanic. In high-tier combat, a single millisecond of sensory deprivation was a guaranteed death sentence, let alone ten full seconds of absolute void.