Chapter 264: Crack down (5)

Castiel could only smile when he heard the 3rd in command. Night mist wasn't just any gas that could be blown away by the wind, rather, spells fueled the strength and volume of the gas.

The gang members that were in the wind pathway began unleashing spells at the black mist which was pouring in, but soon they began noticing that the black mist was only getting bigger.

"What is this mist?" The 3rd in command was confused by the scene because it defied common sense.

When Taft got back to his senses he immediately screamed orders at the gang members. "Stop casting spells on it, you are only making it stronger!"

Immediately, the gang members stopped casting spells and they watched as the black mist slowly filled up the room.

"What are we to do boss?" One of the gang members asked, but Taft had no idea of what to do.

The black mist didn't seem to have any poisonous or sleeping effect and this confused him on its purpose.

'Time to end this.' Castiel blocked the senses of everyone within the night mist and then activated the vitality-draining effects.

"What is going on?" Taft looked all around in confusion when everyone had suddenly disappeared. He began shouting their names but he received no reply. At this point, he took a defensive position, as he heightened his senses in an attempt to locate the enemy.

Castiel on the other hand had made his way into the room and began mowing them down.

With the speed boost granted to him by Night mist, the gang members were unable to react even when they finally got to see him.

In the space of some seconds, 3 gang members were already dead, and Castiel had made sure that the rest in the room heard only their screams. This tripled their heartbeat rate and it also made them back away from the last direction they heard a scream.

'Fear of the unknown is the greatest.' Castiel thought as a fire whip shot out from one of the daggers and latched onto a bandit's leg and drew him towards himself before plunging the free dagger into his head.

AHHH!

The other bandits heard the sound of one of their members being dragged away, followed by the sound of metal piercing through bone. Immediately, they fired countless spells in that direction but Castiel had already moved out of the way.

Castiel appeared at the back of one of the gang members and 4 black tendrils pierced into his body. Castiel had unblocked their sense of sound for them to hear the scream, but that was when Taft shouted.

"Gather at the center!"

'Nice one, but resistance is futile.' Castiel smiled as he saw the bandits slowly moving towards the center of the room.

Not holding back again, Castiel rapidly changed location as he began throwing out multiple fire spells from his daggers. Some of them were either dodged or blocked in the nick of time, but 2 unlucky ones got hit and Castiel wasted no time to pick them up.

'They are only delaying the inevitable.' Castiel shook his head when he saw Taft and 2 other gang members huddled together.

He didn't make any attempts to attack, he just simply stood at a door of the room and threw out multiple fireballs to all the corners of the room, before using the power of an ignitor to make them triple in size.

Soon the smoke from the flames blended with night mist causing the temperature of the room to rise.

'Let's see how they get out of this one.' Castiel smiled as he wore the gas mask and leaned on the walls.

'If we defend we can wait for back up to… Is that smoke that I smell? Is he trying to burn down the room?' Taft thought about different scenarios, but he soon snapped out of them and came up with a way to stop them from choking to death.

"Blow away the smoke with a wind spell." Taft ordered the gang member at his right. The wind element couldn't affect night mist, but it was still able to move the smoke away for them.

Once they were breathing in fresh air, Taft conjured a water barrier to prevent the smoke from entering in. Also, to make sure they didn't run out of oxygen, the gang member on the right continuously generated oxygen.

'Dumbasses.' Castiel chuckled when he saw what they did. The thing was that they managed to get rid of the smoke, but not the night mist. They had trapped a chunk of the black mist with themselves and with the constantly generated oxygen, the mist was only getting stronger as it drained their vitality.

This continued for 5 more minutes and that was when Taft began noticing some things. Not only was his body getting weaker by the second, but he was pumping in more mana than usual to maintain the water barrier.

"Shit!" Taft cursed in realization. 'The black mist doesn't only absorb the mana of spells but spells, but it also drained our vitality. No wonder he hasn't attacked.'

This realization brought up another problem. They couldn't afford to stay in the room any longer, but them going for the exit would leave them open and that was obviously the intruder's plans.

'Seems like we have no other choice.' Taft thought to himself. "On my mark, move slowly to the door and prepare for any form of attack."

Immediately, the 3 began moving one step at a time towards the door, but Castiel was still didn't move out of his position.

"We are almost there." Taft said as they were less than 5 meters away from the door.

"Yes, to see your maker." At that moment, Castiel deactivated the night mist, but what they saw were crossed lines of flames that crashed into the water barrier and exploded.

The explosion instantly destroyed the barrier and sent the 3 flying to the other end of the room where the supplies were dropped.

The explosion was so great that the 2 gang members instantly died on impact with the walls, while Taft was only seriously injured thanks to the armor he was wearing.

At this time night mist had cleared up, leaving only the smoke from the fires that were still raging on.

"Uhh…" Taft held his broken ribs as he tried to get on his feet, but that was when 4 dark ethereal tendrils latched onto his limbs.

"Who are you and why are you attacking us?" Taft asked in a weak tone as Castiel who was wearing a dark gas mask stepped on his chest.

"Hades, and I am here to take your soul to the underworld." Castiel said as a dark glow appeared on the 4 tendrils, increasing the rate at which Taft was being drained.

In less than 2 minutes, Taft had been drained to the point that his skin was hugging his bones.

"That was really fun." Castiel chuckled.

"Time to regroup." He snapped his fingers causing the flames to extinguish before walking out and heading back to the entrance.

…

On the other side of the hideout. After killing 20 of the bandits, Blake began walking down the stairs.

"They shouldn't be much left, and from how empty this corridor is, it seems like they have gathered." Blake thought.

[Come to think of it, places like this should have some sort of way to escape just in case they are trapped.] The system.

"If not they should have all gathered together and attacked at once, but it seems they were just defending?" Blake said in realization.

Zzzg! Zzzg!

Blake immediately activated lighting reinforcement and dashed towards the meeting room. His goal was to make sure everyone died, and from the looks of it seems there was another escape route.

[They are 8 in the room.] The system reported.

'This should be easy.' Blake charged a flame burst and shot it at the double door of the meeting room, sending pieces of it flying into the room and leaving a cloud of smoke at the door.

The gang members began firing spells at the door, for more than 3 minutes, until Fin signaled them to stop. They waited for the smoke created by the spells to clear, but that was when a void dagger was thrown into the room.

"It's about to go down." Blake said with a creepy smile on his face.