Chapter 47: Devil Prince’s Method
In City F’s luxurious residential area stood a mansion belonging to a powerful Epic-rank Hunter.
The leader of the globally 8th-ranked guild Nightspire—Ouja Sinclair.
He had another identity that nobody knew, not even his vice leaders or any other guild member.
Devil Prince of the Soulflare Society.
In reality, he was a peak Legendary-rank powerhouse.
The night had descended, and a job with hefty pay arrived.
He sent his trusted subordinate from the Soulflare Society to get the details and then met up with him.
"Boss, this is the place where things happened."
Ouja looked around the empty plot. "You didn’t find anything with your skill set?"
"Not a thing. You’ll have to use your mystical artifact, boss."
Ouja walked a bit before stopping at a spot and took out a transparent cube with neon-blue shaded linings.
He put the cube down and activated it, causing a pulse to release that formed a barrier around the plot.
In front of Ouja, a circular lever appeared, which he started rotating backward.
As he did that, faint projections of people appeared.
He was rewinding time with this Divine-rank Artifact he had acquired by using Omni-Slot Machine Tickets. Most of the things were useless, but once in a while, it would give something good.
But something strange happened.
As time rewound, Chuzo Fening and his goons appeared, but the perpetrators were not visible.
They could see Chuzo and his goons getting beaten and cut, but not the ones doing it.
"T-This... this has never happened before."
The subordinate was dumbfounded.
The artifact always showed the past clearly! It was his first time seeing people being omitted completely.
"Well, well. This is unexpectedly good news." Ouja narrowed his eyes.
"Good news?" the subordinate blinked, confused.
The next moment, crimson lines were drawn across his entire body, cutting him into hundreds of pieces before they all turned into fizzing red mist and entered Ouja’s body.
’Lower realms don’t let talents above SSS-rank bloom, but X-rank talents, which indicate unspecified potential, can appear.’
Ouja’s eyes gleamed red with excitement. ’I got an X-rank talent after I became a Transcendent Player. So... is this you, Mister Hidden Divine-rank Master?’
’What were you doing here, killing a bunch of weak nobodies?’
’Who are you?’
Ouja took out a phone and left.
He ordered the surveillance footage of the city to trace Chuzo’s tracks and started scouring it.
After finding where the trouble began with Chuzo, he went to the same pedestrian street with food stalls and all.
’The people must hate Chuzo.’
Ouja adopted a strategy of badmouthing Chuzo, listing some of his made-up bad experiences with him, and started conversing with people.
"I heard that bastard finally got what he deserved?"
"Yes! Ever since that young man beat the hell out of him and smacked him tens of city blocks away, that stinky weasel never appeared here again!"
"Hahaha, that’s wonderful. Wish I was here to see it. Do you know who it was?"
"Of course! He did talk to some people here, so we know! But here’s the funny thing. He gave different names to everyone, hahaha! I guess he didn’t want people to find him, and we agreed. It’s not a good idea to mess with the Fening family, after all."
"That’s true, that’s true." Ouja laughed. "So what kind of names did he give?"
"All different, like Ken, Harland, Aidan, Garen, and some others."
...
Right as he finished the investigation there, he got a call from the branch in City H.
The Brimlock family’s young lord had vanished, and even after days of searching, the Brimlock Heaven Guild failed to find him.
They issued a job request to the Devil Prince.
Ouja felt a prick.
’Don’t tell me...’
He swiftly went to investigate, and when he used the artifact again in the warehouse, it showed only young lord Barten and his goons.
’Well, well, well...’
After tracing Barten, he arrived at the real estate office where the trouble had originated.
Then, he began prying information out of the manager and got a description of Aidan, which was different from what the people in City L had told him.
’Different faces, different names. Not bad.’
Ouja saw that the property had been sold the same day. ’But if I check this property and find you... that would be anticlimactic, right?’
Ouja shook his head.
He wasn’t going to do that.
’Whether he is Divine-rank or not, he has managed to unleash power of that level. Something even I can’t do.’
The Devil Prince’s eyes glinted. ’If he can remove traces from everything, even from my Divine-rank Artifact, then it means he has an X-rank talent related to that. Will he sense me if I pinpoint him?’
He wanted to go check the property, but it also wasn’t worth the risk.
So he sent someone else.
"Mister Fening, and Mister Brimlock."
Ouja smiled at the two faces on the hologram screen before him.
"That beard-shop Brimlock is here?" Fening snorted.
"Finger-sized Fening, is that you? Couldn’t recognize you."
Both of them snorted.
"Both of you have lost a son." Ouja went straight to business. "And you want to resolve this quickly. As fate would have it, both young lads were killed by the same person. I am sending you the location of his place. Make sure you go with your full force, or you won’t return alive."
"Finally! You will be avenged, son!" Fening’s eyes turned bloodshot.
"He better have my son’s body, or I’ll kill everyone related to him." Brimlock ground his teeth as he hissed.
Both of their screens went blank the next second.
Ouja, a hundred kilometers away from where Aidan’s mansion was located, sat on a chair atop a hill.
He was waiting for the show to start.
...
[Daily Quest completed. 1 × Omni-Slot Machine Ticket.]
Clearing an Epic-rank Terror Tear also helped him reach Level 1000, the peak of Tier-10, as his stats hit SSS-100.
Other people couldn’t level up like Transcendent Players by killing Terrors. They had to either absorb natural resources, monster cores, or Spirit Stones to increase their stats, slowing them down.
But after reaching Epic-rank, the breakthrough requirement for each rank was the same for both normal people and Transcendent Players.
Aidan got a Breakthrough Quest, which required him to absorb 10,000 Epic-rank Spirit Stones to shatter the lifeform limit and break through to Epic-rank.
’Guess that’ll be done tomorrow. I can participate in a contest with an Epic-rank Terrorized Dimension at stake and win it.’
Then, by killing the monsters inside, he could sell their body parts and cores to earn Epic-rank Spirit Stones. If he was lucky enough to find an Epic-rank Spirit Vein inside, he could mine the Spirit Stones and earn even more wealth.
After returning to the mansion, Aidan used the ticket.
’Give me something good.’
As the Omni-Slot Machine spun with a punch, Tom appeared on his shoulder.
"Master, two things are happening. First, a bunch of threads intending to kill you are coming here. Second, Arthur’s strange cocoon just cracked. He might be waking up soon."
Jovan appeared next to Aidan. "I’ll handle the incoming guests. I should let loose a bit of my Star of Miss Fortune once in a while."
"Alright, have fun." Aidan’s eyes stayed on the slot machine. ’Give me a Legendary item at least!’
