Read Novel Full Chapter 662: How about a Deal?
Chapter 662: How about a Deal?
‘I must get to her and apologise!’
Marionette wiped the pathetic look she had in her eyes and immediately scrambled back to her feet, her heart still full from Lillian’s love-filled call for her earlier.
Getting back onto her feet, she took a step out from the corner she was hiding behind. The determined look on her face to confront Lillian suddenly hardened into a serious expression.
Danger!
With a spin to her left, Marionette threw her hand out, summoning a plain obsidian dagger. She then held it in front of her chest.
CLANG!
‘What?!’
Clasped around the sides of her dagger were a pair of shadowy mandibles that belonged to an imposing dark centipede with red eyes; shock briefly flashed through Marionette’s emotionless eyes, especially so when she got a taste of the monster’s Predatory Aura.
Marionette’s muscles tensed at the thick aura that enveloped her.
It weighed heavily on her body, forcing her to imagine herself under a waterfall where a litre of water was a hundred times its weight.
While it wasn’t to the point of paralysing her from fear, it was enough to put a large strain on her body.
Unable to last more than a few seconds against the centipede, she was thrown into the darkness dimension to be dragged through its cold depths.
‘What’s a monster with this level of strength doing here?!’ Marionette thought with furrowed brows. She hadn’t expected to be attacked so suddenly! Could it be the rumours that yesterday’s incident was really caused by an Outbreak?
‘There were also rumours that no other monster besides that big one was left. But if this one can travel in darkness, it would make sense why no one was able to detect it.’
Marionette continued to push back against the centipede, trying her best to break free without losing her precious dagger. But no matter how much strength she used, she was unable to accomplish it.
‘Even strengthening myself with mana isn’t working. What rank is this monster?!’
Seeing as there was no point in trying to win against the centipede in a battle of strength, she decided to analyse its appearance. It was long, around twenty metres, and was five metres wide. It had four, long, curved black horns, two glowing, slit-pupiled red eyes, and emitted a foul black miasma.
The assassin didn’t like the feeling she was getting from the slit-pupilled eyes, but chose to look past it for now.
Right now, she was busy wondering why the centipede hadn’t attacked her yet.
‘This monster has an ability similar to my element, and yet, all it’s doing is pushing me.’ Marionette analysed. Usually, with monsters like these, they would drag you into this realm and rip you apart by using the surrounding darkness—something she had in the past, as well.
‘Let’s continue analysing first, I can’t thoughtlessly use my mana.’
Unlike Lillian, she didn’t have an easy way to get back mana.
Marionette looked into the monster’s eyes and noticed something that piqued her interest. She sensed no signs of murderous intent from its gaze, nor any intentions of harming her; either that the centipede had enough experience to know how to hide its intent, or it truly had no plans of hurting her.
‘It also doesn’t seem to be running on pure instincts either…’ Marionette eyes flickered with confusion, ‘What could its goal be?’
Turning her head back, she thought:
‘Could it be taking me somewhere?’ Marionette narrowed her eyes, then realised the weight from its Predatory Aura had vanished. ‘It knows how to control its aura, as well?’
Monsters that were capable of limiting how much Predatory Aura they exuded were uncommon. In Hearth, the world is filled with dangerous monsters that want nothing more than to kill and evolve. Because of this, some of them naturally had to go through a period of learning to hunt more effectively. But obviously, not all of them would have perfected the method to completely hide their Predatory Aura, usually leaking at most 10% of their aura—those that could hide 100% of their aura were rare and had dozens of years of experience.
For that reason, Marionette was baffled when she discovered she couldn’t sense a drop of the centipede’s frightening aura. ‘This monster truly isn’t simple in the slightest…’
Although now slightly intimidated by the centipede, the assassin remained calm, ‘Regardless, monsters that have to learn this method are usually those that rely on sneak attacks to hunt for their prey. Because of that…’
Monsters like these rarely fight their prey head-on, so they usually focus their evolution on being fast and strong; rarely would they ever evolve to be more well-rounded.
‘And with how far it’s taken me from my initial location, which seems to be several miles, I predict this monster has evolved mainly towards speed and strength.’
Locking eyes with the centipede, Marionette readied her mana.
‘It’s fast, so I’m going to have to kill it instantly before it can react. I think I can do that without having to use True Darkness.’
Because of her Trait, [Darkness Empowerment], which increases the effectiveness of her next attack—relative to how long she spent around darkness and also its concentration—Marionette was confident.
Not because she was confident in her control of darkness, but because of where they were currently.
With a tight clenching gesture with her free hand, the assassin instantly crushed the twenty-metre centipede, who let out a faint cry beforehand.
[You have slain a Prime Maw, Four-Horned Demonic Centipede Fragment]
Seeing that nothing of the centipede remained after her attack, Marionette raised an eyebrow. But she soon spared half of her attention to her dagger, which still remained in pristine condition. She breathed a sigh of relief in her mind, glad that nothing had happened to it.
Turning back to look at the kill notification, the assassin frowned, ‘What an interesting name… It’s also a Prime Maw? Was it meant to be that easy to kill?’ Marionette sceptically thought before reading closer, ‘A fragment? I killed a fragment of the centipede?’
As Marionette was about to ponder further into what the Jester could mean by fragment, she was suddenly attacked by the very same centipede she had just crushed.
CLANG!
Blocking its mandibles again, Marionette gritted her teeth, sensing the strength behind its charge to be much greater than before. ‘It seems I’ve angered it.’ The assassin nonchalantly thought, prepared to crush it again.
But then.
‘What?!’
The Four-Horned Demonic Centipede suddenly changed direction. And in a matter of milliseconds, they now found themselves in the real world.
Shooting upwards towards the sky, Marionette snorted and unsummoned her dagger. With both her hands now free, she used the remaining strength boost from the darkness dimension to snap off one of its mandibles before leaping off of it.
“SCREEEECH!”
Landing safely on the ground, Marionette ignored the crying centipede and quickly analysed her surroundings. Her eyes then furrowed. It was a dimly lit room with walls made of metal; the same with the floor and ceiling.
There were also three sealed-tight double doors: one to her left, one to her right, and the last behind her.
‘Where am I…? A facility?’ Marionette thought, her eyes darkening with confusion, ‘Why would the monster bring me here? There doesn’t seem to be a nest or something…’
Finding the centipede had disappeared, the assassin became even more cautious of her surroundings.
After a while, the woman came to an enlightening realisation that would answer most of her questions about it.
‘Could it be that the centipede belonged to someone?!’
Not long after she thought that, a large portal of darkness opened up a few metres away from here. It was there that she watched six masked individuals pop out from the darkness, followed by the centipede, which wrapped itself around one of them, still crying in pain.
Marionette took a voluntary step back, ‘The Bloodhounds? Is this all an order from Damien?’
Before she could demand an answer from them, she was met with another shocking appearance.
Leaking through the dark portal, which remained open, was a dense fog.
Watching as it flooded the room, Marionette quickly dispersed it away from her using her darkness, making sure to put distance between herself and it.
Eventually, the fog lost its density.
And when it did…
“Marionette Von Roselle, what are your thoughts on coming to a deal?”