Chapter 604

Chapter 604

All over the globe, nine silver devices ping simultaneously.

Some are locked away in item boxes and magical storage vaults, while others are worn around strong hunters' wrists and necks like ornaments.

Every one of them sends the same signal: a flashing yellow light among nine other lights that glow brightly.

Some of the lights are a dim yellow, just like the one that is blinking, while others vary in brightness. Some are so bright they almost shimmer white.

The dull yellow light that blinks flickers and fades away, signifying that one of the ten members of this mysterious group of leaders has perished from this world.

The first leader to witness this phenomenon is a woman with long black hair, flying high over a dangerous volcanic region on the back of a monstrous earth dragon.

She looks down at the small device, rubbing her pointer finger over the dull, clear crystal that once glowed with yellow luminosity, and curses under her breath.

"That idiot... Picking a fight with an opponent he clearly couldn't defeat..."

She presses one of the strongest glowing crystals on the device next. It glows bright yellow-white, matching the color of her core and the dragon she flies on, and she speaks again.

"It seems the old man, Mr. Freeman, met his end. I take it none of you were incompetent enough to break our ceasefire pact?"

She clicks her tongue and takes her finger off the glowing crystals as her dragon flaps its wings, and they soar further throughout the volcanic lands.

Everything is silent for a few seconds, other than the flow of lava and eruptions a few kilometers below her.

However, this moment of silence is broken by a yell back through the device as one of the other strongly lit lights shimmers and projects the clear audio of a grumpy man.

"Raven? Is that you? Who are you calling old? He was hardly a day past seventy; I'm almost twice his age and have more fight in me than he ever did. He must have died in a desperate attempt to ascend to a True Core before his body failed him."

The voice stops coming through, and the woman stares down at the device with a grin on her face, amused that the old man took offense to her words.

She's about to press her own button to respond, but one of the other strong yellow-white crystals flickers, signifying that its recipient has pressed it on the other end.

She waits patiently for five seconds, but no voice comes out, and the crystal returns to its resting state, implying the person on the other end decided not to say a word.

Raven presses her button and speaks back to the man who actually answered her call with a snarky tone, ignoring the lurker that didn't speak.

"Nice to hear your voice too, Mr. Redgrave. I hope Central Headquarters is treating you well. Your guess on how the Eight Great Regions' branch leader died would have been my assumption too. However, there is a growing power in the Dark Continent that I presume ended the Director. All my sources tell me he goes by the title of The Flame Emperor."

She chuckles to herself while keeping her finger on the crystal for a few extra seconds for all to hear, then changes her direction in the air, slowly starting to turn toward the north, anticipating the angry yell back through the silver device from the man on the other side.

"Well... Then this changes everything. Mr. Freeman may have been stubborn and suffering from a slower cultivation rate, but he wasn't weak. Whoever this rogue force is, they must be taken out. While we have no rules stating that a fallen council member of The Order must be avenged, I would hate to let a force like this continue to grow and potentially harm one of our remaining nine members before the fight for the throne."

Either way, everything about this situation excites me and floods my senses with endorphins. I let out a long exhale of satisfaction and happiness as the reality of what just happened rushes through me.

The fact that really sinks in is that I just killed the strongest man in all of the Eight Great Regions and Dark Continent combined.

There is no one who can stop me from taking over all of the trade routes and Association-run businesses right now.

I activate my mythic-grade concealment, new superior light magic, and new buff master of illusion all together to pulse outward with a very strange aura.

Nothing physically changes, but the light particles in the air are altered and twisted, making for an interesting display of power.

It feels and looks very similar to Bri's ranked-up buff, allowing her to create a small pocket of space that looks and feels like any illusion she desires.

However, I'm far more powerful than that and have even more skills and buffs at my disposal. I bend the perception of myself to look, sound, and feel just like the man I killed.

An aura matching his confidence, greed, and selfishness permeates from me, and if I walked up to myself just minutes ago with this same disguise on, I'm unsure if I could tell the difference...

I smile wide beneath my disguise of golden glowing eyes, unnaturally tall stature, and dark shadowy robes as I walk toward the green spinning labyrinth portal that still emanates mana after this violent exchange.

The shielding near the labyrinth portal bends under its weight, and my curiosity for how high this labyrinth's floors climb simmer in the back of my mind.

However, once I step through and make sure my dungeon walker skill logs and saves the location of the first floor, I turn back around and leave.

A body double can do that work once I return with good news, for right in this moment, I still have lots of work to do in the Apex Region before I can leave.

I flash step across the room and enter the elevator, pressing the 18th floor button to bring myself to the A-Class training rooms next.

It's been less than a minute since the Director died, but his slaves that have been chained down with golden collars for years must finally be realizing their thoughts have not been their own.

As the door opens with a ding, and I peer into the two training rooms with my Sun God Disguise fully activated, I see many eyes turn toward me.

Flashbacks of the golden-collared prisoners crying and screaming with mixed emotions once I freed them back in the Dark Continent repeat in my mind as I take in the scene before me.

The newest three A-Class hunters that greeted me today at the Apex Region are very confused, standing in a triangle in the middle of their training room.

At the opposite side of the floor, the woman healer who always looked uninterested in everything around her, dead tired and bored of the world, is crying with joy on the mana-shielded ground.

The wind and fire users who are A-Class hunters both stare at me with angry stances, their red cores fully activated, making the high A-Grade mana shielding in the room quiver.

However, I'm not worried or necessarily interested in any of them.

My gaze locks onto Rodrigo's as he feels his neck and looks toward me, coming to the realization that maybe the man behind these golden eyes isn't the same one that left this room moments ago.