Chapter 136 - She Is As Good As Dead

"Huh?" In a single instance, three voices united in a single expression of surprise. 

Tom exhaled the air. His eyes widened a little. He didn't expect his desperate wish to actually work. 

The guild master looked down at the spear protruding from her stomach. Her raised eyebrows proved how shocked she was by the sudden attack.

The strange man in black raised one of his eyebrows, more curious than shocked. 

'So that's how it works,' Tom thought, forcing this strange feeling of control to burn itself on his soul and mind. 'Wait, wasn't it spearmage domain rather than just spear domain?' he thought as an idea popped up in his head. 

"What just happened?" The guild master uttered only to spew out a mouthful of blood. The stone that she so readily wanted to press against the crystal slab slipped out of her fingers. 

'If I can move the spears within the domain as I wish...' Tom thought, moving his eyes towards the falling stone. Without his haste, it was only the sense of impending doom that accelerated his thoughts. 'Then... move!' he gave another order. 

The spear rocketed forward, ejecting itself from the guild master's body and striking right against the side of the stone. This alone was enough to knock it out of its trajectory. 

The sound of the void crystal hitting the floor rang in everyone's ears as it fell down and rolled around before coming to a complete stop. 

'MOVE!' Tom urged the spear again. He wasn't a professional soldier, but his training was enough to stop him from just gawking in rapidly-changing situations like this. 

The guild master moved as well. She conjured some sort of magic, blasting it to her side. Exploded away, she narrowly dodged the flying projectile. 

But the explosion was too weak to blast her out of Tom's domain. Yet, rather than trying to finish one of the opponents off, Tom redirected the spear somewhere else. 

Right to where the chains were attached to the crystal slab. 

"Impressive," the man in black robes said. A small smirk appeared on his lips as he raised his hand. 

'Those spears are products of condensed magic, are they not?' Tom thought, attempting to force a certain logic on his own mind. 'If that's the case, then... explode!' he thought just as his spear reached the ring that bound the chains to the crystal slab. 

Ring!

Tom's binds shattered with ease. The same chains that gave both him and Claudia a run for their strenght proved to be completely useless against an attack directed at them from the outside. 

"AH!" Tom breathed out a sigh of relief as he felt a surge of strenght return to his flesh. It was only a small part of what he lost, but it proved that it wasn't the chains that sucked the energy from his. 'Are they some sort of conductor?' he thought, only to cast those ideas aside. 

For now, there were more important things to take care of than analyzing the specifics of the chains. 

"Claudia!" Tom shouted, sending four more of his spears against the chains that bound the girl. 

Clang! 

This time, his attack only bounced off the metal of the chains.

'Right,' Tom thought, moving his eyes to another target. 'Her chains are different,' he figured out, recalling the few bits that the guild master spilled the beans about. 

The corners of Tom's lips raised, creating a vile smile on his face. 'Right, the guild master,' he thought, snapping his eyes to the side. 

'Haste,' he called out for his spell just in case. Even if he wanted to take care of the woman, there was still that black-robed man that he had to pay attention to. 

"DIE YOU...!" The guild master rushed forward. She paid no heed to the bleeding wound on her stomach, lunging at Tom instead. As she flew forward, magic condensed in her right palm, only to stretch out and turn into a beautiful sword. 

But she was still well within Tom's domain. 

'Skever her,' Tom thought with close to no emotion in his inner voice at all. 

Following his wish, the same four spears that attempted to break Claudia's chains... Did nothing. Even though they were well within Tom's range, they didn't respond to his wishes anymore. 

"BASTARD!" the guild master finished her sentence, slashing with her sword. It aimed right at Tom's neck. If he just stood in place, his head would be cleanly lopped off.

'Swap,' Tom thought calmly, changing his order the second his vision swirled, 'fly!' 

"Huh?" Once again, the woman only managed to release a single utter of surprise, where instead of Tom, she slashed at an empty space. The only thing that was there was the spear that Tom exchanged places with. 

But that spear wasn't stationary. Rather than falling to the ground like any object hanging in the air, it rushed ahead, piercing the woman's stomach again. 

"Now, now, why don't we stop it right..." the man in black attempted to say something.

Tom paid no heed to his words. 'Explode,' he ordered, releasing the structure that condensed his mana so greatly it turned into a physical object. 

Since Tom went on the warpath against the online hub, he claimed a human life for the first time. 

There was no explosion this time. As there was no source of combustion nor any reaction like that, no fires appeared. But the storm of raging mana that instantly rushed to equalize its density in the air cleaved the guild master in half. 

'What a mess,' Tom thought, staring down emotionlessly at the gore picture before him. His spear swap brought him only a few meters away to one of the closer spears he didn't move yet. He could escape further, but as he had no idea how far his domain spanned, he dared not to risk letting those two get away. 

And now, he had no other choice but to stare at the bloody result of his actions. The woman that used to be quite a beauty was now turned into two halves, with blood and guts creating a pool of disgusting mess between the parts of her body. 

"And she's dead," the man in the dark said, shaking his head. There was no grief in his voice, only... disappointment? "Didn't I tell you to wait?" he asked, raising his eyes at Tom. 

"I saw no reason to listen to an enemy," the young man replied, slowly inching his way closer to Claudia. 'Now that I took his ally's life, he is likely to try doing the same,' he thought, ready to stop that possibility from happening. 

"Well, I guess that's true," the man said before finally stepping forward. Yet, instead of approaching Tom and Claudia, he actually stood up above the corpse of the guild master and looked down, seemingly unbothered by the smell or sight. 

Then, completely ignoring Tom and Claudia alike, he kneeled down only to push his hand directly into the chest of the woman's corpse. He didn't break through her skin, nor did he snap the bones. It appeared as if the flesh of the deceased guild master was just an illusion, an illusion that the man's fingers penetrated with ease. 

"Here it is," the man said, pulling out his bloodied hand. And right between his fingers, a beautiful stone shined brightly, was stronger than any of the stones that Tom saw in the dungeon. "Anyway," he said, turning his head towards the wary duo. "While the things didn't go the way I expected them, I got my compensation already, so how about we call it quits right now?" he asked, putting a weirdly off-putting smile on his face. 

"So you think you can claim the spoils from my kill and just leave?" Tom asked, taking half of a step forward. He still had yet to summon his real spear, but instead of doing that, he backed out the step did a moment earlier and raised his hands up. "I won't attempt to take back the crystal," he said as a small smile surfaced on his lips, "but this doesn't mean you can just go and leave," he said. 

"What do you want?" the man asked, rolling his eyes as he looked at Tom. 

"Your actions here destroyed our plans for this place," Tom said, twisting his lips in an ugly grimace. "Whether it was something you enticed that woman to do or if it was her plan, it doesn't matter," he said before taking a step forward. "But now, you need to recuperate our losses," Tom added, perfectly aware how thin was the line he attempted to balance on right now. 

"I will ask once again," the man in the dark said, clearly dissatisfied with the situation. "What do you want?" he asked as his eyes turned hostile. 

"Root out every group that's tasked with relaying the information about this place to the outside," Tom said as his mind spurred to come up with a valid plan. 

"Huh?" The man shrugged, clearly surprised by request. "And what's in it for you?" he asked, squinting his eyes with suspicion. 

"Does it matter?" Tom asked, leaning his head. But before he could say anything else, a sudden realization came to his mind. "Right, I will need you to free my girl from those chains," Tom added, pointing his left hand behind to where Claudia stood. 

"Wait, so you actually care about her?" the man asked as his eyes widened. 

"What do you mean by that?" Tom asked as a bad premonition washed over his soul.

"I mean, just look at her," the man said, leaning his head over his shoulder..  "With how long those chains sucked her life force away, she's is as good as dead already."