CHAPTER 99: DEALING WITH THE TRAITORS

Lia’s magic power dropped rapidly as she instantly made her innate power bloom.

A bow materialized in her grasp.

Without hesitation, she raised it, pointed it at Seliane and drew its string back as far as she could, and as she did that, dozens of crescent moons formed around her.

"Damn. This bitch has also regained her powers." Seliane’s eyes widened as she felt greatly endangered. "Nothing’s going as planned. It’s like I am cursed!"

Twang!

Lia released the string and the crescent moons sliced through the air, hurtling straight towards Seliane, forcing her to give up on taking Lia hostage if she wanted to save her life.

She stumbled back, narrowly dodging the crescent moons, each one whistling or brushing past her like a reaper’s scythe, leaving her bloodied and injured, full of cuts and scratches, but failing to claim her life.

Her retreat, however, carried her closer to Ray.

He raised his hand to slap her dead.

"I won’t let you harm her!" Faelar roared, raising the dreadful and pitch black mirror to point it at Ray.

Ray’s eyes narrowed. He knew exactly what that accursed thing could do, and more importantly, what it couldn’t. As long as his figure wasn’t reflected in it, he wouldn’t be trapped in the mirror dimension.

In the end, he was forced to give up on killing Seliane to save himself from being imprisoned like Muri.

"Lightning Step."

Ray’s stamina dropped to one unit as he vanished before Faelar could point the mirror at him.

In the next instant, he appeared beside Faelar, punching out.

A thin film-like barrier appeared around Faelar, blocking the full force of Ray’s fist.

Tsk!

Ray clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction.

"He is like Ashclaw, equipped with multiple life-saving items," Ray thought to himself.

Faelar tried to catch his reflection in the mirror as Ray punched out again.

This time, as soon as his fist connected with the barrier surrounding Faelar, a torrent made of high-temperature flames burst out of his knuckles.

Faelar’s last layer of defence melted away before his very eyes, and he felt horrified as Ray’s fire-imbued fist slammed into his ribs with the force of a cannon, crushing bone and melting flesh and organs.

With his insides reduced to ashes, Faelar, who was left with no heart to pump blood through his veins, died instantly.

His mirror slipped from his lifeless hand and fell towards the floor, threatening to shatter upon impact.

Ray’s caught it before safely tucking it away into his inventory with a thought.

Muri was trapped inside it, and he didn’t know what would happen if the mirror broke, so he was left with no choice but to store it in the safest place he knew for now.

He turned around, fixing Seliane with a stern and murderous gaze.

Under this gaze, Seliane couldn’t remain confident like she had been when the Reptilia stared at her.

As he looked at her, her entire body trembled, her bow clattering from her hands as she dropped it in terror.

She knew escape was impossible. Ray was horrifyingly strong, crushing bronze rankers like ants.

The only thing she could do was beg for mercy. However, as she groveled before him with tears running down her face, listing out a thousand reasons why she deserved to be spared and making herself appear as pitiful as humanly imaginable, Ray’s resolve wavered not a single bit.

He was dead set on killing her.

Her excuses?

He was having none of it!

So what if she was enslaved by the demonic creatures and forced to do their bidding if she wanted to continue living? So what if she had no choice? If he was in her shoes, enslaved by a demonic creature, he would have killed himself instead of betraying his race and killing the people who could shift the tide of war in favour of the races going against the demonic creatures.

"You have done too much evil in your life. You can’t be spared."

While saying these words, he moved in to kill her.

He was so fast it seemed like he had teleported. He appeared in front of her in a flash.

He had only risen his hand to slap her to death when she screamed, "I...I know how to save your battle companion from the mirror dimension. If you promise to let me go I will tell you about it!"

Seliane gave him a desperate look. Her eyes were wide and trembling as she searched his gaze for the faintest flicker of hesitation, for the smallest sign that he might be tempted by her offer and waver from his murderous resolve.

For a heartbeat, a ripple did appear in his resolute gaze, but it was fleeting, suppressed almost instantly, crushed beneath his killing intent.

"Your offer is laughable," Ray said disdainfully. "It can’t buy your life."

"W-Why?" Seliane screamed in sheer terror as his raised hand dropped down on her like the blade of an executioner. With the weight of inevitable death pressing down on her like a mountain, she felt deeply suffocated, choking on her saliva in panic, desperate for oxygen.

"Because I can rip whatever I want to know directly from your corpse," Ray replied coldly as his hand landed on her head, descending the same fate that had befallen Marcus upon her.

Boom!

Her head exploded into smithereens.

Chunks of flesh and shards of bone mixed with brain matter sprayed across the air like a grotesque rain. Warm blood spattered in every direction, painting the floor beneath them crimson. And fragments of her skull clattered onto the floor with hollow, echoing sounds.

Thud!

Her body, forcefully stripped of its head, collapsed lifelessly at Ray’s feet with a dull thud, twitching once before falling completely still.

Ray looked at his hands.

He had killed Seliane just like how Garrick, the master of the Fire Drake, had killed a top-notch beauty when he first transmigrated hundreds of years into the future.

At that time, Garrick was offended because a nameless nobody who couldn’t even contribute toward the prosperity and growth of human civilization had dared to disturb a sacred ceremony that was the very reason humans had managed to live through the Dark Age and carve a safe haven out of an extremely hostile environment. He killed her because he didn’t need to tolerate the existence of something spoiled rotten by a family that had its hand in a lot of filthy business. Evil breeds evil, and while killing the spawn of such heinous nobles, he had never felt a thing or hesitated.

Ray’s reason for killing Seliane was similar. He refused to tolerate her wretched existence and, since he had the power to put an end to it, he did just that.

From the very start, he wasn’t a good person, neither just nor righteous. If someone threatened his life, he wouldn’t bother reasoning with them. If he was strong, he would butcher them on the spot. If he was weak, he would try to escape so he could take revenge another day.

After absorbing Ashclaw’s and Tristan’s memories, he had become even more ruthless. Ashclaw and Tristan could be said to be devils in human skin. Absorbing their memories had a profound effect on his temper.

Even butchering an ethereal beauty like a pig aroused no sense of loss or pity in him.

"Good," Ray thought, liking the changes he had undergone, because to survive and change this world, he had to be ruthless to the extreme, like a cult fanatic.

With his resolve reaffirmed, everyone who deserved to die he would kill without hesitation, no matter how beautiful or pitiful they looked!

"You look like you have something to say." Ray smiled at Lia.

"How strong are you really?" Lia asked.

She hadn’t done much to help. Ray had killed the three terrifying demonic spies all by himself. She was completely in awe of his strength.

"Someone once said I can stand toe to toe with the top hundred strongest bronze tamers. But I don’t think he was clear about what I was truly capable of at that time. And I have only grown stronger since.

"Tamers are almost twice as strong as typical hunters. You can figure out the rest," Ray replied.

Tamers were no ordinary existence.

Their seals allowed them to wield skills on par with the innate abilities of the myriad races inhabiting the known universe.

And unlike most, they never fought alone—their tamed creatures amplified their power to terrifying levels. Fighting them was like fighting multiple rankers at the same time!

The only area where tamers lagged behind other races was in physique, but that flaw could be overcome with external resources or by stepping into the gold rank.

Because of this, tamers were regarded as one of the most fearsome forces in existence, rivaled only by the fiends.

Hearing his words, Lia ran the numbers in her head and arrived at a chilling conclusion.

’Only silver rankers can truly threaten him. I was accompanied by such a terrifying expert and I didn’t even know.’

She started to see him in a different light.

Silver rankers were considered the peak experts of her world, yet the numbers of silver rankers that could be found on Veloria could be counted on two hands. And around half of them were from the enemy side.

Most battles were fought between bronze and iron rankers, the true backbone of every army. If she could bring Ray to her side, the bloodsuckers would suffer losses so heavy they might never recover!

’But how do I do that? Beg him? Or offer myself up and entice him into helping my world?’ she thought, staring at Ray with those enchanting eyes that could hook a man’s soul with a single wink.