Life Hunter

"Here" One of them spoke with an emotionless voice and pointed at the ground. The two others nodded and threw the corpses they had on their shoulders.

The one who had spoken approached the bodies and drew some blood runes on them. He then continued to draw numerous magic circles and symbols around. The blood glowed with a bright light before disappearing, as if the ground had absorbed it.

"It"s done" He said and prepared to burn the bodies when he felt a strange distortion in s.p.a.ce that made him stop on his tracks.

Soon after, the humming of a person resounded in his ears "So that"s the ident.i.ty of deviants, huh? Well, that"s a bit disappointing, you"re only some homunculus created with body parts from other living beings"

The casual voice declared and the deviant looked around, at the same time, the light coming from the stars illuminated his figure, along with the two others as well.

Their faces were completely deformed, it could have bulges or scars all over it. But there was also some animal eyes or skin. The one who drew the runes had the nose of a lizard and his right eye was a goner. His skin, apart from the one around his nose, which was green, was all brownish.

That same homunculus looked up and saw a man nonchalantly sitting on the roof of a house, looking down on them. He wore some black clothes and a small wolf cub was lying on his shoulder.

The three homunculi silently drew their weapon. Arima smiled and disappeared from where he was. The one with a lizard face frowned and scanned the surrounding with his mind. But not only could he failed to find that human, he realized that there weren"t any other presences around, at least in his research"s range.

"…I don"t understand, I perfectly realize that you kill them for a sort of ritual, but I can"t understand what it is for" Arima"s voice resounded one more time.

This time, he was crouched beside the b.l.o.o.d.y corpses from earlier, he was examining the runes and circles drawn on them. The homunculi turned toward him once more, but the three of them were very silent.

Since they were artificial ent.i.ties, they had nothing to say, the only thing they knew was that a human saw them and they had to kill him. But they also understood that it was an impossible thing, they realized since a moment ago, that they were trapped, and their lives totally under Arima"s hands.

"Tell me" Arima stood up and looked at them with a cold look "What is this ritual for?" He asked and pinned them down instantly with his aura. Just the latter was enough to break all the gla.s.ses in hundred meters radius, some cracks appeared on the wall of the buildings.

But the most affected were the three homunculi, two of them were already on their knees, trying their best to not be crushed. The ground at their feet was also cracked and destroyed. Although their strength was around the eighth level, Arima"s aura was of a different dimension, even if it didn"t look that powerful based on its effects on the surroundings, the simple Spirit discharge could beat a tenth level warrior.

The lizard guy also finally fell on his knees after a few seconds of struggle, his strength was at the ninth level. One thing to note was that each of them wore a perfectly indifferent face, they were just frowning, trying to get up.

"I see" Arima approached them slowly, with each step, the pressure would become stronger "No pain, no emotion, no ego, only a shackled soul" He commented and raised his hand, and pressed his middle finger against his thumb.

At the same time, his sigil revolved "Let me give you what you haven"t" He said and snapped his fingers. The homunculi"s eyes widened and their movements stopped, they slowly reached their head and held it with their hands.

It wasn"t long before they started screaming and crying. They suddenly felt a wave of emotions, pain, and fear, crushing them.

Night frowned "You rewrote their souls?"

"Yeah" Arima said and called Ira, in two shots, he destroyed the heads of the two eight level homunculi and then pointed his gun at the last one who was still shrieking. Arima increased his aura"s pressure and the homunculus suddenly coughed some blood, his feet became buried on the stone ground, his shouting stopped and his eyes lost any l.u.s.ter.

Arima snorted and called back Ira. He grabbed the "deviant" by the throat and made it look into his eyes "Appreciate the emotions I gave you, thanks to them, I"ll be able to access your Mind" He said and his burned with a purple fire "[Fifth Black Art, Penitentia conspiciunt]"

The homunculus eyes also burned with the same light and his body went limp after a few seconds. Arima dropped him and went through the memories. He mused and then burned the corpses before releasing the dimension.

He went to the victims from earlier and looked one more time at the runes "I see, what an irony" He smiled and said. After that, he burned the bodies in this place, he also did the same for every trace of remaining circles or runes "Even if I burn them now, I don"t think it will help though" He said before leaving the place.

"So, we"re in trouble, right?" While Arima was jumping casually from a roof to another, Night asked.

"Kinda" Arima responded.

"That was unexpected though" Night exclaimed "Their goal was to create a gate to h.e.l.l. You talk about a coincidence"

"Yeah…" Arima stopped and landed on a roof.

"What"s wrong?"

"There"s something fishy about all of this" Arima said "This ritual they"re trying to do, they have no basis that it will work" He pondered and frowned "Is it a sort or of distraction?"

"Distraction?" Night exclaimed "For what? No, even before that, if they don"t know what will happen if they open a gate to h.e.l.l, isn"t it a bit too bold to use it as a diversion?"

"Maybe they judged it wasn"t that dangerous for them" Arima said and started moving once more "Which would mean that they don"t care about the damages it could bring, it would imply that they want this city"s destruction. But while they don"t care about h.e.l.l, it also signifies that they are not foreseeing their troops to step on this continent"

"Ah? Are you saying they won"t send any forces or troops here?" Night was confused.

"Yeah, something like that" Arima responded and then started to wonder "Something that could threaten an entire country, but isn"t coming from a human source…" He muttered and his eyes flashed "Dungeon!" He exclaimed.

"Dungeon? I thought you were disappointed by it" Night tilted his head.

"Yeah, but that"s not the point. What if another country got their hands on the dungeon"s blueprint. They could either create a new dungeon and hide it on this continent and let the monsters gather in it before releasing them. They could also do the same with every other dungeon on the continent" Arima explained and then smirked for some reason.

Night looked at that smile and sighed "You won"t stop it, will you?"

Arima"s grin became wider "Of course, why would I do something like that? It should be extremely fun to face millions of monsters" He said with a very disturbing tone "Well, but at least, I"ll try to do something about that h.e.l.l gate, but I need to a.n.a.lyze the circles for that"

He declared before creating a time dimension instantly, he teleported to a plain. He always chose this kind of environment because he liked how pure it was, it also had a perfect view of the sky.

He sat down and re-drew the runes he saw earlier on the ground with mana. When he finished, he was able to look at it carefully.

"Soul… Darkness… Death. That"s the three main components of this array. Darkness for a theoric link between our world and everything that is hidden in h.e.l.l, but that link represents a path closed by a gate. Death is connected to the Darkness as a key for the gate. And the Soul is used to push that key and make it turn. But the souls needed are of course retrieved from the living world, those dying souls are collected and given to the key"

Night blinked "So, basically, it needs sacrifices to create a path toward h.e.l.l"

"Yep" Arima answered and touched the runes, he waved his hand and made it move, he also did the same for other symbols and circles.

"What are you doing?" Night asked.

"I"m trying to understand what it will exactly do when it is activated, and what would happen to the city if it was opened. That"s what I"m looking into" Arima explained.

Night hummed and watched silently.

Ten minutes after, he opened his mouth "Hey, I need to ask, if you rewrote my soul, do you think you could allow me to take human form?" He inquired.

Arima stopped moving his hands and looked at Night with widened eyes "Ah" He suddenly exclaimed as he was struck by a great idea "There was that way too, huh?"

Noticing how Arima reacted, Night"s expression darkened "…Hey, you didn"t think of it seriously before, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Arima looked away in complete innocence "But it"s possible. Well, I would need time and also concentration, because if I mess up, well, you wouldn"t die, but you would be either stuck as a wolf pup or a dragon"

"If it ever fails, please make it so I stay in my dragon form" Night immediately said.

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It just took a few days for Arima to finish the a.n.a.lysis of the whole array"s structure. It could sound long when you think that the one who did it was Arima, but real experts would call him a monster, to decompose every element of an array and look into it, it would take months for a group of specialists.

"That"s really odd. This thing has no real goal. I feel like I lost two days of my life" Arima said and sighed "It looks like an incomplete theory, that is really just made to create chaos"

"So, you didn"t learn anything in the end?" Night asked.

"No, I at least could deduce that it was a summoning ritual. But the chaotic aspect of this is that there is no target for the summon. The only thing I know is that the summoning is supposed to happen in the perfect center of the city. Basically, the castle" Arima explained.

"When?" Night furrowed.

"Mm, two weeks maybe. I don"t think I can stop it by now, I have no choice but to take care of the summoned beast itself" Arima answered and sighed. He then stretched a bit and looked at Night "Now, do you want to try that?"

"Of course" Night affirmed and slowly changed into a dragon.

When Arima had Night facing him in his ten meters tall form, he snapped his fingers and a circle encompa.s.sed them "We will resonate now, but there will be no physical manifestation, it will be easier for me to rewrite your soul" Arima declared and Night nodded.

"[Resonance]" The both chanted at the same time. Night became a black light and recovered Arima"s figure. But the unusual thing was that the light didn"t disappear. Instead, Arima sat down and closed his eyes and fell into deep concentration.

In his Soul right now, Arima felt like he had arrived in the middle of a strong fire. He had a ma.s.sive stone monument in front of him, depicting a n.o.ble dragon.

Arima breathed in and touched the stone, the statue started to glow and red lines spread on it. These same red lines started to be transmitted to Arima.

"Let"s begin" Arima declared and he became totally shrouded in a red light.