Unholy Player

Chapter 497: The Owner of the Scarlet Sea (Part 2)

In the cult leader’s eyes, just three Rank 4 Blood Path Practitioners were more than enough to turn the entire Outer Region upside down. They should be sufficient for the mission, based on her common sense and current knowledge of the area.

"Arvyn, Kaelor," she said slowly, as 2 figures from the back rows of the hundreds of kneeling cultists stood up and quickly approached, their robes whispering against the dirty, wet soil.

They dropped to their knees and said, "Yes, Your Holiness," their voices steady and obedient, perfectly in sync with the oppressive silence hanging over the ritual grounds.

"Go," the woman said.

With the order given, the three figures, including Sevrak slipped into the darkness without a sound, their silhouettes thinning and vanishing as the shadows seemed to draw them in.

Once they were gone, she turned her attention back to the body lying in the blood pool. Her eyes shone even more beneath the red mask as the corners of her crimson lips curled into a twisted yet strangely charming smile, revealing her white teeth and sharp canines catching the dim, flickering light.

"It won’t be long now. Then this land will finally see what a real God is."

She felt success so close it was almost tangible. The nearness sent a faint tremor through her body, tightening her grip on her own anticipation.

In the next instant, her expression hardened. She snapped her head toward the darkness behind her, eyes locking onto the distant shadows where she felt something shift, like a ripple across still water.

"Who are you?" She stared at the empty space where her eyes could track nothing, yet her senses easily caught the disturbance caused by the uninvited guest.

The hundreds of cultists also moved at once. Everyone rose to their feet and took a defensive position in front of the body lying in the pool of blood, forming a living wall of black robes.

"Relax, relax, I’m not your enemy." The voice rang out over the dying land, bright and warm, cutting through the heavy air. A moment later, a figure finally broke from the shadows, revealing himself to the crowd.

The man, his hands raised as though facing a drawn gun, walked slowly. His steps were unhurried yet careful.

He was a young-looking man, at most in his mid-20s, with bright yellow hair shining in stark contrast to the dark atmosphere around him and two pupils burning like two suns in a pale, relaxed face.

"We’ll be the ones to decide if you’re an enemy." The woman didn’t look particularly tense, but her features under her mask had already tightened into a hard, displeased frown.

Whoever this uninvited guest was, coming into this secret place full of powerful people, had to be either far too strong or so reckless that he no longer cared about the risk.

Him finding this hidden headquarters of the cult was one thing. His decision to walk straight up to them made everyone present believe he was more terrifyingly strong than just reckless.

"I’m really not." The man spoke with another light laugh, then added, "I’m just here to tell you that the treasure, or more like the remains left behind, that you are looking for is already gone."

The cult leader, hearing the words, suddenly released a suffocating presence around her as her voice rolled out in every direction. "What do you mean already gone?"

The man felt the pressure building around him, thick and threatening. His raised hands trembled for a moment, but he still kept his tone calm. "It’s gone. Completely gone. Someone took it and used it down to its last crumb, so there is nothing left for you anymore."

The moment after he finished speaking, his whole body suddenly burst with a popping sound. Flesh and blood hit the ground with wet splatters, the only things left from his body, painting the floor in fresh red.

The cult leader, her hand raised in front of her as if she were squeezing something invisible, looked at the remains. Under her mask, her crimson eyes burned intensely, akin to coals receiving more oxygen.

She wasn’t the sort of woman who talked first and then acted later. She was the exact opposite, choosing violence the moment she felt a conversation stray from her liking.

Then she stopped looking at the torn flesh littering the dirty soil and shifted her gaze to another spot, where the same man now stood again, completely intact, as if he had never exploded at all.

The man shook his white robe, straightening the wrinkles, and said with a slight frown, "Hey, hey, why did you do that?"

But before he could respond, his body promptly exploded again into a spray of flesh and blood, the pieces scattering in an instant and adding another layer to the already stained ground.

He reappeared in a different location with his body fully intact and yelled, "Can you stop it already?" as irritation finally leaked into his voice.

However, his body popped again with another blast.

He reformed once more, this time with his brows deeply drawn together, clearly annoyed, as he tried to say, "You..." He didn’t even get to finish the word before his body burst yet again.

And again, again, and again.

For the next minute, every time he reappeared, he was destroyed all over. Blood and flesh kept blooming across the ground, and he never had enough time to even open his mouth and talk. His deaths stacked up in a grotesque loop.

When he finally burst for the 33rd time, with the ground already layered in his remains, he raised his hands at last, desperation and impatience written plainly across his restored face.

All at once, color and sound dropped out of the world. Everything turned black and white. Motion froze as well, apart from the man, whose yellow hair and sunlike eyes still burned at full brightness, the only vivid contrast in a drained scene.

"Can’t you be reasonable and listen to me?" He looked like his patience had finally snapped, his breathing turning uneven as all those deaths began to weigh on him, the repeated cycles finally catching up.

The cult leader, caught in the range of the skill, turned statue-like for a moment, frozen in colorless stillness, until her head began to rotate back toward him with a slow, deliberate motion that seemed to bend time. The eyes behind her now-black mask regained their crimson hue and glowed in the monochrome world.

"Shit..." The man cursed as he saw those threateningly shining eyes. A heartbeat later, his body burst once more, and reality slid back to normal, its colors and movement returning with the skill’s cancellation.

The woman watched the shattered body parts fall like red rain for the 34th time, then spoke, her voice edged with irritation as it cut through the wet patter. "You have 3 seconds." Her gaze left the bloody scraps and slid to the spot where the man had already appeared again, whole and standing. "Convince me, or you will keep dying until it becomes eternal."

The man already looked close to his limit. His breathing had become harsh and uneven, which made it clear that if this cycle continued for much longer, one of these deaths might be the one he wouldn’t come back from.