Chapter 38: Intruders
Could it be Scorpion? Uhtred considered. But he shook his head right after.
No way. Not after I just completely overpowered him. Scorpion would never think to come back here immediately.
Besides, the System does not permit harm to children in any manner or form within Zone 0.
That was the main reason Uhtred dismissed the idea outright. Even if Scorpion somehow found the courage to attempt something like this, it simply couldn’t happen. The System would never allow it.
That fact, coupled with the gaze Uhtred had felt earlier, made him certain he was dealing with someone else entirely...
An intruder.
Most likely someone or something not bound by that specific rule of the System.
Which therefore means... someone not human?
Uhtred’s eyes narrowed into a thin line as he sped towards the blue border of the zone.
He could already make out the figures of the task force members he had seen earlier. They had spread out, racing towards the border, trying to see if they could find or spot the figure that Diya had described.
Uhtred was also doing the same. As he devoured the distance at a blistering pace, his eyes swept across the surroundings.
His [Inspect] skill worked at full throttle, searching for the slightest anomaly. His senses stretched as far as he could manage, every part of him fully alert and ready to catch even the smallest detail.
Within seconds, Uhtred reached the first of the task force members.
It was a woman.
Her head whipped backward at the sound of the heavy footsteps thundering behind her like a charging bull. Her eyes widened in shock as she took in Uhtred’s figure, who blitzed past her, heading towards the border of the zone far faster than she could.
She didn’t even have time to fully process anything yet before Uhtred had gone out of earshot, wholly focused on the task of getting the children back.
There it is! That feeling again!
As Uhtred neared the border, he felt that same gaze from before.
This time, however, it was sloppier. He immediately locked onto it coming from his left side and changed his bearing towards that area.
His posture lowered, becoming more menacing as he suddenly increased his speed again, his large star-metal battleaxe in his hand not posing a hindrance to him as he sped towards the spot.
There’s definitely someone there! Uhtred thought to himself, pushing even harder.
He could already hear the sound of stones being kicked as if something moving at speed had knocked them out of place by mistake. Yet his eyes could spot nothing of the sort, even though his ears could pick up the sound already.
Some sort of cloaking device? Uhtred thought grimly.
That could only mean one thing. This person had access to the Multiversal Store at the very least. And to Uhtred’s knowledge, he was the only one who had reached Level 10 on the entire planet.
How then could anyone have such a thing without the help of the multiversal store?
It simply went to prove that his earlier theory was likely correct. They were not dealing with a human this time.
Suddenly, just as Uhtred bore down on the spot he was hearing the noise of shuffling feet from, a jarring feeling of being assessed washed over him.
This one was entirely different from the tiny prickling sensation he felt just now, and also when he was being watched earlier in the pavilion.
Rather, this one felt more purposeful. It felt like someone had just "inspected" him either with an inspect skill or an inspect lens. Someone lower-leveled than he was. And in doing so, they had triggered his awareness.
Like a homing device, Uhtred’s head whipped toward his right, where he felt the use of the inspect skill emanate from. He looked at the spot with more clarity than he did at the tracks he was chasing, and without hesitation, he changed his direction again and charged straight at the spot.
The person seemed to panic, as if they had never expected that their use of the inspect skill would have triggered Uhtred’s attention. Perhaps they had not realized how high his level was compared to theirs, and this had thrown them totally off guard.
As Uhtred bore down on them, he suddenly noticed a shimmer in the air.
The figure had stumbled.
A moment later, their cloaking device slipped, exposing part of their legs.
Uhtred didn’t waste the opportunity.
Before they could regain their footing, the hammer side of his battleaxe slammed into their legs with brutal precision, eliciting a pained cry.
The figure crashed to the ground and Uhtred landed on their body, his hand grabbing where he knew the cloaking device to be, and he yanked it away without hesitation.
The figure of the person was still hooded underneath that cloak Uhtred had removed, and in their arms a human child lay unconscious, stunned from the impact of the fall the person had taken.
Uhtred jabbed a fist at the back of the figure’s head, sending their head rocking forward and loosening their grip on the human child.
He pulled the innocent young boy out of the arms of the figure and into his own arms, just as the figure on the ground scrambled, trying to pull out something from the pouch on their waist and swallow it.
"No damn chance!" Uhtred grunted and sent a powerful essence-enforced kick at the figure’s head, knocking them unconscious before they could do anything.
At this point, the woman from before, whom he had passed earlier, finally reached Uhtred. He quickly handed her the young boy, who was still unconscious, before he then squatting down and pulled the hood off the figure’s head, curious to see who it was underneath.
The moment he did, however, Uhtred couldn’t help the surprise on his face and the instinctive rear backwards his body made.
Even the woman behind him let out an involuntary gasp.
"What the hell is this...?"
