Chapter 48 - 46

The servants, soldiers and individuals inside the royal palace were in distress as King Xiuwei commanded strictly that they must find a way to retrieve the second princess. Zero was unaffected to this as he left unknowingly through the same passage way of the ancient library. He had a hunched that the girl was hiding there.

The passage was the same as he saw the usual lamp light attached to th wall. He did not take it as he used his qi perception in order not to alert the person who might be hiding here.

He retraced his track to the tunnel until he arrived to the spot where he heard the voice of that witch. He followed where it came. The walk was around ten minutes when he reached the end of the tunnel.

'Did he got it wrong?'

Zero examined the wall as he found runic symbols on it. Even though he was not familiar to it but the system was telling him otherwise.

[System Detection: formation barrier in north.]

'A formation array?'

The young man looked at the wall infront of him as he observed the runes that were scribbled on the wall. Even though he was new to formation arrays as this was his first encounter with it but he read it on a book that formation arrays had its core that would served as a 'heart' of a formation.

In order to locate it, Zero touched the runic symbols as he traced it with his hands. Feeling each of the runes if he could figure something out from it.

["System, do you have any items that could detect formation arrays' core?"]

Right. He could not buy anything from the system shop as he had no completed tasks yet.

["Do you have any freebies for it like free test?"]

[Host could try the free samples of mini bombs.]

'Mini bombs? What would I do with that?' He thought.

[Mini bombs are designed for free samples. Explosion intensity is 20%, magnitude level is 5% and it is made for muted explosions.]

Zero frowned as the system did not stop talking about those mini bombs. He was not interested with it but it felt like the system was forcing him to take it.

[Mini bombs are free, the host will not regret trying.]

[Mini bombs are free, the host will not regret trying.]

[Mini bombs are free, the host will not regret trying.]

It kept repeating like a broken stereo.

["Okay, okay. I'll take one."]

The young man sighed as a small palm-size bomb appeared on his hand. He frowned while looking at it. There was no indication where to activate it. How will it explode?

[Host can use a command and the system will activate it.]

'Alright.'

Zero put the mini bomb beside the wall and he thought for a good command. He then smiled as he thought a cool one, "Cha-ching!"

['Cha-ching' is set as activation voice command. Auto-explosion activated. Host is advise to be 20 meters far away from the mini bomb.]

'20 meters?' Zero used his agility to run away out from the explosion radius. The young man did not heard any sound of explosion as the system confirmed it.

He went back to the wrecked place and saw the big hole on the wall. It then led to another passage but a shadow caught his eye. It was the girl he was looking for!

"Wait! I have something to ask you!"

The girl ignored his shout as it continued to run away. Zero chased her. Finally a dead end met the girl that made her stopped from escaping.

Fortunately, he had a good stamina thanks to his system so he did not get sweat from the chase.

"It's over now. You cannot run anymore."

Zero went near to the girl who was facing the wall when Aries chuckled maniacally as she slowly turned around. The youth was stunned to the horrid face of the girl as protruding bones could be seen from her deep flesh wounds and her skin was strangely melting.

[System Detection: Level 3 Sphinx]

Aries cried as her body was slowly ripping away from its flesh. She fell on the ground while convulsing. Zero knew that this must be his second task but how could he burn this girl if he wasn't able to retrieve anything from her?

'Task or evidence?' This thought kept on playing on his head as looked at writhing girl.

Suddenly the girl stopped from convulsing as she stood up, her horrifying visage was not less scary from her previous gashed wounds as it made her face more terrible.

'What manual?' By instincts, Zero dodged to the left as the girl attacked. 'How do I kill this monster?'

["Do you have any weapons or something that's free to use?"]

Zero did not forget to add the 'free' word, knowing that he was still poor on buying in the system shop.

[Free weapons are wooden sword, wooden axe, wooden knife, crowbar.]

The youth went silent for a moment as he selected the crowbar, atleast it was metal. Zero sprinted a distance away from the Sphinx girl as he spinned and adjust his hold to his choice of weapon.

"This would do. Come!" Zero taunted the monster as the Sphinx roared and launched its attack to him.

Zero immediately calculated his distance, the timing of attack of the monster, the span of his hand as he used the crowbar to lodged it on the monster's head. But unfortunately, his crowbar got stucked on the Sphinx' head as it roared again while shaking its head with the crowbar on it.

The young man cursed and summoned again another weapon. He used a wooden sword and strangely the wooden sword wasn't like a wood that he expected it to be but it was more hard and durable than the previous weapon.

He taunted again the monster to attack as the monster did so. He slide through the feet of the Sphinx as he hacked away its right foot.

'What a good sword!'

It fell down to the ground but it did not give up on attacking as it crouched and jumped on the youth.

Zero used his fire magic as to try his luck. He did not use his magic earlier because he did not know any offensive spells that could defeat this monster so he compromised by using weapons and this would be a good test for his improved stats.

"Fire ball!"

It didn't even leave a burn to the monster as it just shook away the flames.

Zero did not wait for it to take its lead again as he used the wooden sword to incapacitate it. A Sphinx weakness was its head so the youth dashed to the monster and swiftly hacked the monster's head and it fell of. But the youth did not rejoice from the small victory as he knew that this Sphinx girl had another soul on its body.

The monster that fell had only its body left as the head was burning to ashes from Zero's flame. Though, it did not have any head but it cackled, its laughter was really creepy as the youth felt chills and goosebumps on his body.

Truthfully, he did not ignore the system's statement when it said that it was level 3 so he was still wary after it fell down, knowing that the girl who turned into a Sphinx wasn't just a simple human.

"Hahahahahah… you killed me yet you did not," stated by the monster. The body had now a mouth on its stomach and when it opened its mouth to talk, a black crystal-like substance could be seen on it.

Zero threw another round of his fireball in order to create a diversion. He was planning to slice the monster in half or into pieces just to be sure that it would not get up again but if all of it doesn't work then there's still plan C.

["System, there's more of that mini bombs right?"]

Smokes and burning flesh could be seen on the monster's hideous figure. Someone wouldn't imagine that this monster was a sweet-looking girl earlier. The monster did not resemble any human right now as it didn't have a head but only a body that had a mouth on its stomach. The cut leg was replaced by a newly grown muscles as it stood there unbalanced with both feet.

"Your lame magic will not cause any harm to me even that puny sword of yours," the monster spoke with its ghastly voice as it patted the burning small flame on its shoulder.

"Let's see."

Zero ran to the monster as he slashed his sword. The monster caught the wooden sword with its mouth as it mockingly threw the youth away. Zero endured the blow on his back as he collided to the wall. The impact of his collision was severe as the wall cracked but the young man did not mȯȧnėd in pain as he smirked while looking at monster. Even though the monster had no eyes he could sense the youth's strangeness. The monster was about to spit away the sword when it was too late.

"Cha-ching."

And then a muted explosion came after.