About half an hourter Pablo who was sitting on a table that set up in the middle of the floor at the VIP area of ktr, having a nice dinner, suddenly looked at the entrance of the room where a couple of guards opened the door.


    An eerie breeze of air entered the room, before a ck mist manifested itself, from which a ck robed figure emerged, judging by its body shape it was a man, he couldn''t be 100% sure as the figure was covered with things from head to toe, including a mask.


    Pablo still turned to see his bodyguard who was standing next to him, and only after seeing him nod, he weed the neer.


    "Good evening senior Shaz, I was starting to worry about you noting, which would make the loses I suffered in vain".


    "…", the man remained silent for a moment as he inspected the whole area, the aura of an early stage Ster ranked ran through the room, just for a second, it wasn''t aimed at anyone, so there were no damages, but every nook and cranny of the club was inspected, only then the man took a seat in front of Pablo.


    "Young master Bolge seems to be quite understanding, as far as I know this ce is quite crowded all the time, but there are no customers tonight", said he man with a hoarse voice.


    Pablo rose his cup offering a toast to the man.


    "Of course, as I mentioned the information I got is of the top quality… honestly it''s even hard for me to believe it".


    The man''s aura changed, from the neutral feeling of a moment ago, to an eerie and slightly terrifying one.


    "Speaking of that, can young master Bolge show me the witness mentioned, even before we further discuss about it, I want to confirm it with my eyes".


    Pablo nodded, he beckoned and then a pair of guards brought Brandon who was chained, next to him.


    "Out of the two actives I sent to the mansion of the Trident Marshal as requested, only he who was the assistant of my field agent survived".


    The man inspected Brandon and then allowed Pablo to continue, not before saying.


    "He does indeed have traces of the arrays and other things that exist in that mansion, I brought the payment requested, but before that, tell me the information, regardless of the result I''ll give you half of the payment, who knows it might be something me or my superiors already know".


    Pablo seemed to had a hard time not cursing, but ultimately, he controlled himself and asked the guards to take Brandon back to the room where he was being kept, he then took out a notebook from his storage ring and said.


    "The Trident Marshal has been recruited by some unknown existence, and is now working to take over the kingdom, it''s also rted to the people that had recently appeared in Neptune… they aren''t natives of this!", he shockingly eximed before adding.


    "There is more information on the same level, discovered by the assistant, since my field agent was caught and killed, I have it in this notebook".


    Visibly there wasn''t that much of a reaction from the man, but his heartbeat became erratic for a fraction of a second, before it returned to normal.


    The man then nodded and took out a trove from his storage ring, he opened the lid to show the contents, there was a bunch of pretty octagonal light blue crystals, perfectly piled, the numbers reached the dozens of thousands, there was also a spatial ring on top of all the crystals.


    "As we agreed, one hundred thousand high ranked sea crystals, fifty million low ranked ones and also a promise from my contact in the ckfin family, so that in case of some shipments being discovered, young master Bolge will be notified and given his legit properties, do we have a deal?", asked the man as he extended his hand at Pablo to offer a handshake.


    Pablo inspected the trove and after confirming everything was there, he nodded and leaned frontwards to ept the handshake.


    Then for a moment it was as if the world had slowed down, Pablo could hear the voice of the man on his ears.


    ''What a shame, you could have been a great pawn, but you know too much and we can''t have you telling on to your mother, so go to hell''.


    Pablo''s whole body shivered, all the hairs on his body stood on their ends as he saw many small red lights shining through the mask of the man, he as an Arch ranks was able to caught a glimpse of a strange limbing from the stomach of the man, aiming at his head, but when he was about to die without a grave, suddenly the four limbs of the man separated from his body.


    "Huh?", the man couldn''t react on time and his now limbless body fell to the ground, he red at the origin of what took away his limbs and gritted his teeth.


    "What is a middle Ster ranked doing here, the stronger people in ktr right now should be a mere Half Ster ranked".


    Pablo whose face as pale got up his seat and then kneeled down next to the table, the limbless man then saw one of the guards taking Pablo''s seat, before the others sat next to him.


    The man then saw a ck spear piercing his chest, which made him smirk, he didn''t show any kind of pained reaction up to this moment, strange symbols started appearing all over his body, which had started to dpose into a ck mist, but then the ck spear suddenly lit up in white mes.


    "Aghhhh, what the hell is this!!!", the man finally showed a reactions, his four limbs grew back and he tried to take the spear out, but not only the bodyguard who was stabbing him didn''t flinch, the mes made it so he had a hard time grabbing the spear.


    The symbols on his body then turned red and his flesh started to swell, as if he was about to explode, but then the bodyguard stabbed him with a second weapon, this time it was a ck inked sword right on the left side of his chest.


    The man then copsed on the ground, and the symbols faded out and disappeared".


    "What the hell did you do to me, you bastard!!!", shouted the man, his body started getting thinner as if his life was abandoning him, this continued until the man was only a sack of bones with skin stuck onto it, normally this would mean the man was dead.


    But there were two surprises here, first the man was still alive, second the shape of his skeleton wasn''t precisely what you would call human, the bones that confirmed the legs reached all the way to a few centimeters below the ribcage.


    The ribcage had an strange spiraling shape too, and there were only three bones in the fingers of each one of his limbs.


    The sound of fingers snapping echoed through the area and then a ck dome covered the whole room, the bodyguard''s shape and face then changed to that of a tall elegant woman.<novelnext></novelnext>


    "The flesh was that of a thousand eyed bottom horror snail, but this Empress has never seen this kind of skeleton, also a Ster ranked Skelefiend doesn''t be like this, they all change into something like that old zombie bastard of Horrorw, despite the fact that there is a lot of bizarre things hiding beneath the waters of the Maelstrom Sea, this is a first".


    The guard that took Pablo''s seat, nodded before saying.


    "That''s because this guy is neither a magic beast nor an Skelefiend", as the guard finished speaking, his appearance changed to that of a silver haired youth with a mask that covered half of his face.


    Daimon frowned behind his mask, he looked at Thea and the Empress then teared the mask of the man on the ground apart, to reveal half of his head was covered with eyes, his mouth wasrger than a human''s and had spiked teeth, it was quite ugly, races with multiple eyes exist, but that''s how they are supposed to look so there is "harmony" in their nature.


    In the case of the creature that was in front of Daimon, it was different, it looked as if someone just mediocrely mixed a few things, it gave off a worse vibe than the abominations created by the undead, despite it being "natural", instead of artificial.


    But to Daimon''s surprise this isn''t he first time he has felt this kind of auraing from someone, back then when he finished walking through that ck stone hall, the monster that was imprisoned on the door which tried to devour him, was the same, originally Daimon thought that thing was an Skelefiend but after having fought them quite a few times, he could safely affirm he was wrong.


    Even the methods they used to improve themselves which they got from that "Lord" they mentioned, made them look more human like Shirel, or control dead bodies like the ones who were cooperating with Ulkrear.


    But this being in front of Daimon wasn''t like that, his skeleton wasn''t like the ones of the Skelefiends, and he didn''t enhance himself using the lineage of a magic beast like the pirates, instead it seemed to be just an aberration of nature.


    "Looks like our line caught something pretty interesting, answer what are you, who do you work for?", said Daimon.


    A moment ago, Thea assured him, this creature whatever it is, it wasn''t under any kind of contract, as she couldn''t see any restrictions within its soul.


    But then under everyone''s surprised expressions, the thing''s body exploded in dark purple mes, which threatened with sshing on everyone.


    "You''ll all be marked, once my Lordes it will be your end hahaha!", the thing hystericallyughed, as its body withered away and turned into ashes, a ck sphere came from within the mes and actually bypassed Thea''s barrier, to escape.


    Thea tried to grab it, but the mes them attacked everyone forcing her to defend, to her surprise her mana was being overpowered by those creepy mes.


    Daimon''s body exploded in white mes, his Demon Light previously caused an excruciating pain to the creature that wasn''t bothered by having its body cut or pierced by Thea''s spear, so he supposed his battle aura was effective against that creature.


    And he was right, the purple mes avoided him as if he was the gue, and that wasn''t all, a sh of light came out of his pocket and his ck Sea Emblem blocked the escape of that ck sphere that was what was left of the creature.


    The head of the rune shark came out of the emblem and before Daimon could order it to not do it, it swallowed the ck sphere, the purple mes immediately disappeared and to everyone''s surprise, the voice of the creature could be heard onest time.


    Even when the thing was burned by Daimon''s mes, there was only pain in its voice and expression, but this time what could be heard in it was a deep despair and terror.


    "I-Impossible, how can this be…", the voice of the creature disappeared before it could finish its sentence, the ck emblem then returned to Daimon and entered his pocket before it became quiet.


    Daimon''s sharp ears, caught a faint metallic sound, he saw the spatial ring of the creature falling on the ground, so he grabbed it and tried to inspect it, to Daimon''s surprise it wasn''t protected, which could mean two things, first its previous owner didn''t have anything of value in it, which clearly wasn''t the case, the second possibility is that the restrictions on it were eliminated by a rune master expert.


    But that wasn''t possible since the ring just lost its owner, fortunately Daimon who worked as Liz''s assistant knows the principle over eliminating restrictions on storage type treasures, essentially it''s a kind of soul contract, and to eliminate it, one must scrape all the leftover specs of the previous owner''s soul in the ring.


    In other words, his ck emblem eliminated the soul of that creaturepletely, when it swallowed that ck sphere, which reminded him of a magic core.


    And the surprises kepting, with a quick look into ring, Daimon''s eyes widened a bit, leaving aside the ungodly number of sea crystals, which he didn''t bother to count, there was also a quite eerie thing… as coffin.


    "…", after a moment of silence, Daimon took out the coffin, because he wanted to confirm something.


    The girls who stayed behind, approached Daimon curiously, just to see the coffin, which contained a fully bandaged man, one which Mellie surprisingly recognized.


    "That''s the ckfin''s Duke shadow, my sister has a record of all the people that do the dirty job for the highest ranked nobles, she has been trying to capture this guy for a long time, his name was Timor if my memory doesn''t fail".


    Pablo whose hands and legs were still shaking, paled.


    "H-He is the one I spoke with, my contact with the ckfin family was him, he is the one who asked me to spy on you, I thought that thing was him since it covered its whole body with something, just like Timor".


    Daimon felt a headache iing, he caught a quite big fish this time around, but while it brough him answers, it also brought new questions.


    ''That thing didn''te from the scheming guy, it reced the subordinate of the ckfin Duke and changed the n from capturing me to killing me, ahh damn, that means the Duke isn''t the one behind this too, he probably just wants his treasure back''.


    Daimon shook his head, it was gettingte into the night, and thest hint was now a dead end, literally, he sent the coffin back to the ring and then kept the ring in his inventory, in case someone… or something had a way to track it, it would be useless as it would be in his inventory.


    "Let''s go back to the mansion, Brandon you and Pablo stay here and keep the business going, offer some empty promotions that extent for a week or so, I want you to gather the worst noble scum here on the next days".


    "Yes, young master!", they both answered, the array was on again, and unless someone with an ability simr to Thea appeared, the customers that could enter freely would be below the Arch rank, so Pablo and his subordinates which were enved to him would be enough to handle things.


    ''Tomorrow is going to be such a long day'', thought Daimon, he had a lot to talk with the queen and the others.