Chapter 486 - Stealth Hunting

"Overseer! The preparation for the cleansing war is finished, the army is already fully armed and on standby!"

In the stone room imitating the style of human throne rooms, a demon clad in full armor kneeled in front of the throne before reporting in a respectful voice.

"Good. What about the key? Report its current status…"

Lazily lying on the throne, the lean four-armed demon raised his eyebrow, throwing back a question rather than discussing the details of the first report.

"It's already settled, the 'key' is completely prepared to be sent over. When the time comes, not even the curse of suppression would stop us!"

The armored demon hit his chest, showing his great passion for slaughter. On the other hand, upon hearing that nothing was out of routine, the four-armed Overseer waved his hand to shoo off the reporter. 

"Dismissed."

"Understood."

Still in his kneeling position, the armored demon didn't seem to mind the seemingly rude gesture as he simply bowed his head. Only when the Overseer nodded in response did he get up. However…

Spissh!

...before he could turn his head back, the armored demon's eyes widened as he stared at the 'water display' being performed just beside the throne…

`~~`~~`~~`

'Oh… so the falling continues?'

Although I felt the spatial transfer take place, the place I was teleported to was exactly the same that it felt like I didn't move from my position.

'Here we go.'

Thankfully, as soon as I looked down, I noticed the light coming from the end. It seemed like it was a legit tunnel this time. Moreover, my attempt at ascending rather than descending worked, it seemed like 'Absolute Gravity' didn't work here. 

'No…'

Despite feeling slightly tempted to check what would happen if I continued flying up rather than descending into the base, I decided against it in the end. The tunnel I was stuck in for a little while earlier was enough as a warning for me not to mess with the gate's mechanism.

'Let's dive in!'

Accelerating towards the exit, I flipped my wings to maintain my position upon crossing into the light to get a top view of the demon base.

'Seems like I really cut it close…'

Even though I was flying over a hundred meters above the ground, the first thing to catch my attention wasn't the buildings or their positioning, rather, it was the swarms of demons armed to the teeth.

In comparison to both demon bases I had gone to, this base seemed to have been completely ready for war. It wasn't too far-fetched to say that I might have missed my chance to get rid of this hidden danger if I was just a day or two late.

After doing a quick survey as I lowered my altitude, I quickly got the gist of the base's basic structure. In general, the setup and buildings were very similar to the two other bases, the only notable difference was the building at the center, which was likely to be the Overseer's 'house'.

In order to lower my chances of being revealed, I stopped using 'Flight of The Wind Dragon' and simply relied on my wings' basic gliding ability to reach the ground, making sure to not miss any important details that could be captured from above.

After finally landing in an empty spot out of the 'army camp', I enveloped myself in my mental energy to lessen the wait till I was a little bit short of floating so that I wouldn't leave footprints behind.

'Time for a little inspection.'

Making my way into the army's ranks, I used my 'Eye of Knowledge' as I consecutively checked the demons' status in search of my targets...

No matter how stealthy I was, once I started engaging with the demons, it would be hard to maintain my 'Invisibility'. As such, I naturally needed to pick out the ones that had a higher risk to be taken out first.

As the inspection proceeded, I couldn't help but notice a rise of level in the current demon army when compared to the one that appeared at the Nature Domain. It wasn't that much, ranging between 15 to 30 levels, but when considering the demon's numbers even this small increase would have a serious impact.

'A difficulty rise or…'

While it simply felt like the natural setting of a game for 'monsters' to have higher levels as the player's stage advances, I felt that simplifying the 'Lost Realm' in that concept would be undeniably wrong. In contrast, I thought of my primary target's jobs.

'Is the suppression wearing off…?'

Remembering the novice shamans that allowed the whole Demon Army starting from the commanders to the lowest footsoldier to display power beyond the normal just by existing, their keywords came to mind. If that was their original strength that was just being suppressed, then…

Was it really the 'demon hunters' that did so? If so, then was whatever they did in the process of 'expiring'?

'Is this why their 'invasion' suddenly started now?'

Taking a likely guess as to the cause of the whole predicament threatening the whole 'Lost Realm', I felt thirsty for more details to fill the gaps in my knowledge.

'Why now?'

However, before I was able to give the matter any proper thoughts, I spotted my first prey!

[ 'Novice Demon Shaman' Lv. 158 ]

Sitting down with his back to the wall, a black-robed demon seemed to be resting carelessly, staring into the ceiling of the base.

'Well, I can always think about it later.'

Taking my current mission as the priority, I quickly formed a shortsword from Darkness elements and brought it over to 'introduce' it to the novice shaman!

S…!

Unfortunately for him, the novice shaman only seemed to notice my presence when the 'introduction' had already started. For the sake of his image, I made sure to pierce his throat first so that no one would hear his ugly screams, all while holding the splattered blood with my 'Telekinesis' and storing it away into my ring.

[ You have absorbed the blood essence of a 'Novice Demon Shaman', purification in progress… ]

[ You have obtained 228,486 EP! ]

After confirming his death, I held the novice shaman's body so that it wouldn't draw someone's attention before suddenly storing him into my ring. Although sudden disappearance would draw attention still, a corpse staring into the ceiling would do so much more.

"Huh? Where did he go?"

Walking away from the scene that could no longer count as a 'scene', I ignored the closest demon's dumb questioning face as I wandered in search of my next victim...