Playing inventor in a cultivation world
Chapter 132: Climax
The Shield User’s expression changed rapidly, shock filling his eyes.
"Who is this again?" He cast a confused look towards Kael, feeling as if Seraph had become completely alien.
It couldn’t be the recruit that Manager-0Y had brought earlier, could it?
Seraph slowly turned to them, his face completely emotionless behind the cracked mask. He gripped his hammer tightly and raised it, preparing to dive into assault again.
However, before anyone could move, a stifling pressure seeped into the base, and everyone of them froze.
Seraph lowered his weapon and immediately locked gazes with the human coming from behind the four senior agents.
It was a woman in black robes just like them. However, she wasn’t wearing a mask, so it revealed her grotesque, disfigured face.
It was the same woman that had spoken to Yelena a week ago, but no one was aware of that.
She looked at the disheveled figures of Kael and the other King Stage reapers, then shook her head.
"It is a pity that the two Senior Managers are currently absent. We have not choice but to use this."
Seraph’s gaze merely lingered on her for two seconds before shifting to the hunched figure beside her.
The hunched figure belonged to an incredibly old woman with wrinkles on her face. Her arms were skinny, and she looked like a person with one foot into the grave.
Seraph’s calculative eyes narrowed. This old woman was the one radiating the stifling pressure, and he could tell that she was at the Emperor Stage.
Still, he had no thoughts regarding that. Instead, he simply kept his gaze focused on her.
Kael turned to the disfigured woman, his expression ugly.
"You want to kill my Senior Brother?! Look here, he is mine!"
He looked maddeningly possessive, as if Seraph was a toy he owned.
When he had disguised himself as a kid and infiltrated the Soul Peak, he had grown really interested in Seraph.
Now knowing that Seraph was one of them, that interest had morphed into a chaotic obsession that couldn’t be let go.
"What a pity," the woman clicked her tongue. "If you want me to step back, I will. However, get ready to die at his hands."
Kael’s expression became uglier, and he glanced at Seraph who simply locked eyes with the ’wild card’.
Gritting his teeth, he made the decision and said, "Do it! I’ll stop her when she’s about to kill him."
The disfigured woman chuckled, then turned to the old woman.
She calmly unlocked the chains around her neck and wrists, then whispered.
"Go, granny. Protect me from the black demon."
Hearing her set of trigger words, the hunched figure disappeared.
Boom!
When she reappeared, Seraph was already sent flying, crashing through several passages before stopping in the Mission Dome.
When the others got there, his body was sprawled on the ground, unmoving and seemingly devoid of life.
"Is he dead?" The archer asked in a whisper, his expression tight. He had never been this afraid of any being, even more when that being was weaker than him.
The disfigured woman chuckled and said, "Do you think he’d survive granny’s blow? He might be unnaturally strong for his age, but he definitely does not possess the willpower to resist granny’s psychological blow."
The archer’s eyes widened, and he hurriedly nodded.
Unlike King Stage cultivators who were simply strong to the extent of decimating mountains in a few moves, Emperor Stage cultivators were a step above them in complexity.
An Emperor Stage cultivator possessed something called Will, and it was what made them especially deadly.
If they attacked anyone with their Will, it would directly inflict a psychological damage to the opponent. This kind of damage could not be blocked by any means, so only Emperor Stage cultivators were qualified to fight another Emperor Stage cultivator.
"Ugh. I can’t believe he died in a single blow."
The shield user sighed, casting a look towards the ruined structure of their base. It was going to take a while to reconstruct—
Clang!
He suddenly froze, feeling all his hair stand on end. When he looked before him, he could see a huge red hammer infinitely close to his head. However, the granny had blocked the attack, preventing his head from being crushed to meat paste.
’Holy molly...’
He stepped back in terror, just like the others as they watched Seraph’s broken figure rise from the ground. His limbs were twisted in odd angles, but he forcefully reset them, standing tall again.
The tip of his hair had turned white again, and one of his eyes had returned to being rainbow-colored.
Now, he looked incredibly off, but no one paid attention to that. What caught their attention were the golden runes on his body and the fact that he radiated absolutely no presence.
Something about his expression was different. He no longer looked furious, and he wasn’t completely expressionless anymore.
Instead, he had a wide unnatural smile on his face.
"That smile..." Kael shivered, feeling unnerved.
Then, Seraph opened his mouth and said, "My name is Heraph. A mix of Halo and Seraph, if you get. Really weird, isn’t it?"
He looked at everyone calmly, then raised his right hand. The red hammer spun back into his hand, falling perfectly into his grasp.
"You see, you guys have hurt my boy so much. Normally, he isn’t used to this type of pain. After all, I dulled all his emotional senses for over three decades. But now... sigh. I can only apologize for the destruction that is about to follow."
The Reapers’ expressions turned grim.
Heraph turned to the old granny, his expression troubled.
"This guy can’t really fight an Emperor for now, so I’ll have to make this quick. Regardless..." He turned back to the Reapers and grinned. "Hakuna matata!"
Saying those words they wouldn’t understand, he raised the hammer and struck the ground fiercely.
BOOM-!
The golden runes on his body dimmed, then reappeared on the ground, completely enveloping the base.
Heraph’s jovial expression disappeared.
"Eternal Collapse."
There was no loud explosion. There was no thunderous quake. Just a faint tremble.
Yet, the whole base began crumbling at a pace too fast to observe.
"Stop him!"
The disfigured woman screamed in panic. Instantly, the old granny shot over to attack Heraph. But by the time she reached him, he had dissolved into faint golden particles, his figure gone from the battlefield.
"Bastard!" The disfigured woman screamed in frustration, pulling at her own hair as she watched the destruction of the base around her.
"Agent Manny! Do something!"
The dual blades user hesitated, then nodded. He unsheathed his swords and stabbed them into the ground. Then, he twisted the blades.
"Hold!"
He grunted as the structure of the base trembled again, the collapse seemingly halting for a few seconds.
Unfortunately, they had all forgotten something that was still present on the battlefield.
The red hammer suddenly lifted itself and slammed into the oblivious man who was trying to stop the destruction using his earth affinity.
Bang!
His upper body was crushed to pulp, and he died while kneeling.
"Arrrrrggggggghhhhhhhhhh!"
Seeing this, the disheveled woman almost ran mad. How could the hammer move by itself?
That was too crazy! It felt too deliberate and suspicious. However, she could do nothing about it because the entire base was still collapsing before her eyes.
Kael’s expression was grim, even though his eyes glittered unnaturally.
’I was right. Senior Brother is really the best specimen. He’s so great that I can’t believe it. Good thing he didn’t die. I’ll be able to study him well once I capture him in the future.’
He then turned to the other reapers that were still alive and said.
"We’re abandoning this base. Let’s leave before we also become casualties in this place."
The shield user and the archer agreed with him, followed by the disheveled woman.
With grieving hearts, they abondoned their base that had been standing for decades and chose to flee. This was a first since the Reapers Organization had been started, and the news was surely going to spread throughout the Orchid Province.
Just a few minutes after they flew away, golden particles began reassembling into a humanoid figure that was clad in black robes.
It was Seraph—or to be precise, Heraph.
The young man folded his arms and observed the enormous crater before him. This had once been a major base of the Reapers.
Now, it had been completely destroyed.
"Boy, I helped you fulfill one of your wishes. Remember that you owe me a favor. I’ll be gone for a while to receive punishment for breaking some rules. Don’t miss me too much."
Then, the wide smile on his face disappeared, and he collapsed to the ground.
His black hair rapidly changed to white, becoming the normal hair color which Seraph possessed.
Seraph lay there for hours until a few curious adventurers came over to check the destruction and saw him lying at the center of the ruins.
"Who is that?"