Stopping behind a djinn, Kaneki's ability deactivated as he immediately plunged his katana forward, impaling the djinn in front of him.
Shaking the body off his sword, Kaneki swiftly turned to the right before raising his katana above his head and slashing it downwards with the maximum force.
As areas of darkness appeared above the bodies of the djinns, Kaneki continued his onslaught.
Yet... no djinns turned back to fight him.
Kaneki could have killed at least ten djinns this time, yet he had only decided to kill two.
Rather than revealing his presence and taking as many of the distracted djinns out as possible, Kaneki was blending in and slowly killing them.
This plan allowed him to conserve both energy and mana while breaking apart the formation of the djinns without them even knowing.
However... Kaneki had forgotten to account for one thing.
And so had everyone else in the room, including Ren.
The djinns' numbers were dwindling rapidly as the main cast's fight, combined with both Kazuki and Kaneki's efforts, were killing at least a djinn per minute.
This could be seen easily as the room, almost nearly filled with djinns earlier, was now empty except for the front area of the room.
However, the horde of djinns showed no signs of stopping.
Djinns cared about their lives even more than their desires.
After all, most djinns had only changed from humans so they could survive in the world and gain powers.
In contrast to that behavior, however, the djinns continued relentlessly fighting without any care for life.
They weren't that stupid.
The dead corpses and bodies of their teammates were on the ground, making it impossible for anyone to see them.
These djinns saw their teammates and fellow djinns being massacred, yet they still charged forward despite knowing their fate would be the same.
It was as if...these djinns had no regard for their own lives.
Peeking his head out of the hole, Ren confusedly observed the fight between the djinns, the main cast, and the two recruiters.
Something was... definitely wrong.
Very, very wrong.
Stopping himself from comparing the scenario to the one in the book, Ren took a step back before trying to come to a conclusion from a completely unbiased perspective.
Seeing the djinns rushing forward despite seeing their teammates die right in front of them, Ren's head started to ache.
The djinns had no regard for their lives.
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Yet, their inherent trait as a djinn was that they valued their lives more than anything else, even their desires.
How could these two concrete facts co-exist?
Were the djinns brainwashed?
No, the demon who signed the contract with the djinn would never allow that to happen to their djinn.
Unless...it was the demon who did the brainwashing?
It was possible but highly unlikely.
Demons relied on their contracts with djinns to gain power, so brainwashing them into dying was essentially them giving up their own power for no reason.
Then, what else?
Grabbing his head, Ren decided to ignore the djinn's behavior and move on.
After all, he was practically on their side as he was also attempting to rob the vault.
Having expected visitors and reinforcements, Ren wasn't too surprised at the appearance of the sudden recruiters, who were also present during the assembly.
However, their power did throw Ren off a bit.
He couldn't recognize the figures based on their appearance, and he didn't even know their names, but they did seem powerful...way more powerful than Ren, at the very least.
Although Ren had a feeling he had seen them somewhere, this was not the time to delve into the past "Ren's" memories to recognize them.
Maybe another time, though.
Staring at the obsidian wall, which was preventing him from the inside of the vault, Ren reached into his pocket.
Corruption or Obsidian?
Which material was more powerful?
Having tested this question already, as he knew the vault's entrance was a wall of obsidian, Ren already knew the answer.
Pulling two corrupted daggers out of his pocket, Ren also manifested a mask, purposely making it different from the previous designs he had used.
Placing his hands on the floor of the underground space, Ren lifted himself up until his entire body was in the space.
Using his passive stealth skill, Ren quickly hid in the dark portion of the cave before taking a glance around. S~eaʀᴄh the Nôvel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
The main cast and recruiters had a pretty good setup going.
The top portion of the door was defended by a recruiter who was using a spear, while the bottom was held by the main cast.
And, staring at the rapidly diminishing horde of the djinns, Ren realized that it was just a matter of time before all of them died.
Focusing on his eyes, his ears, his mouth, and eventually his entire head, Ren grinned before muttering.
"I haven't used this ability for anything but flying in a long time..."
In a matter of seconds, Ren's head was no longer his head; instead, a pointed head that resembled that of a dragon appeared atop Ren's body.
With two twisting horns and a long snout, Ren looked like some half-human, half-dragon creature.
"Hmm?"
Reaching his hands out, Ren stared for a second, feeling something was off.
"Why do I feel... weaker."
Although it was hard to discern for others, with Ren's eyes, he could realize that his reflexes and speed weren't slower than usual.
"Maybe the djinns set up some invisible stun spell, and I walked through it?"
Dismissing his slowed reflexes and speed, Ren, with his dragon head, slipped into the horde of djinns.
He actually... fits in quite well with them.
With his dragon head, Ren looked as weird as they did, although his body was unharmed, while all of the djinns had scars.
Finding himself in the middle of the horde, Ren jumped for a second in mid-air before opening his mouth.
As the blood-red substance and ocean-blue mana flowed toward Ren's mouth and combined, a small purple orb appeared above Ren's tongue.
As the orb began to grow more and more, eventually reaching the ceiling of Ren's mouth, the room began to shine a dark purple.