Chapter 438: Skull Masked Figure
Chapter 438 of "Extra's Path To Demon King" opens introducing the plot: The Guard trembled and ran quickly to call the man. At this moment, Fanzo’s expression... Continue exploring!
The Guard trembled and ran quickly to call the man. At this moment, Fanzo’s expression was also serious, as he could not help but ask, "I’m assuming those hidden research facilities belong to the family Head himself."Balen looked at Fanzo for a moment and nodded, "Not only that, those are the facilities conducting the most important research. The art of Bio-rune engravement. The path of runic sorcery pioneered by Damien Nomrad himself."
Even someone as calm as Fanzo’s expression turned to complete shock as he heard that. He could not believe it. Wasn’t it supposed to be a Taboo? To engrave runes on living beings? As far as he knew, the royal family had forbidden this evil practice of the runecraft.
Balen only gave Fanzo a scornful look; the knight slowly came to understand why Lord Balen was so scared of this matter. Suppose the news leaked that the Vex family was researching this taboo form of runecasting. This could spell doom for them.
They were already doing many inhumane things, like using tribes or villages as slaves to mine the secret rune materials from the ground in various locations.
Recently, he had heard that some unknown party massacred an entire village, all the enslaved people, guards, and seekers deployed by the Vex family; everyone was brutally killed without exception.
Even to this day, they have not been able to find out exactly what happened there.
It did not take long for the head of the Guards to come. He also seemed to be wearing a serious expression. Balen spoke in fury,
"Just what have you and your dogs been doing? Who leaked the news of those facilities?"
The Guard leader was also a 4th phase seeker; he was somewhat displeased by the tone of this man, but had no choice but to endure it. "Sir Balen, the individual who is targeting the facilities, is powerful and uses strange abilities. Even rune tools do not seem to have much effect on this Masked Being."
"What do you mean by Masked Being?" questioned Balen, having a bad premonition.
The Guard nodded with a trace of fear, "We are moderately sure this masked figure is not a human. And this being alone is simultaneously targeting all these hidden facilities. It’s almost like he has a teleportation device with locked coordinates. As for the research facilities’ contents. The masked man only destroyed the things in it."
"Most of the people who face him also end up dead. And this information, I was only able to get from the long-range warriors who observed him from afar," added the Guard leader.
At this moment, Fanzo interjected, "What’s the pattern of the masked man’s attack pathway? Is he slowly moving towards this Vex main mansion?"
The guard leader seemed stunned for a moment, as he only realized this matter now, and his face became ashen. "Yes."
Balen instantly cursed, "This damn fool. Fanzo, follow me."
Fanzo added hurriedly, "It’s heading towards this place. If I am not wrong, someone in a high position of the family is coordinating alongside this masked man."
Balen sneered, "I know, and whoever it is, the traitor will likely strike at the most crucial moment. To take us down from the inside. But something else is bothering me..."
"No one should be able to sabotage the defenses of those rune research centers aside from the family head himself, who had set up those formations," stated Balen Vex, and thought about it further that it certainly could not be done through brute force, unless the masked man was a late 5th phase being.
Fanzo remained quiet because he did not know what to say to that statement. He had no answer himself, just like Lord Balen.
Balen then reached the frontmost room on the third floor of the Vex family’s main mansion. As it was the most secure room, he controlled various rune formations and commanded their family’s troops from there. Again, barely 20-30% of their actual workforce remained, as most were taken to the borders by the family head and other high-ranking elders.
Balen relayed various orders to the 3rd-phase Seeker guard division, consisting of 150 to 170. The Guard Leader had already relayed the necessary information that any power below that of a 3rd phase was unable to do even the slightest damage to the skull-masked man.
Actually, only the 4th phase Seekers would be able to go toe-to-toe with this mysterious figure. But Balen did not want to take a risk. 4th-phase Seekers were literally the cornerstones of any major forces and represented humanity’s highest level of power.
So, even the most prominent first-grade forces only possessed a minimal number of 4th-phase Seekers. On the other hand, the number of 3rd-phase Seekers was large. So, he wanted to use the third-phase seeker’s guard division as cannon fodder to exhaust this man further when he arrived.
Once this was done, when Balen sends the 4th-phase Seekers to take care of this troublesome fellow, it would be a one-sided slaughter. Balen also relayed some more necessary instructions: once the masked man set foot inside the mansion, he would be unable to escape when he was near defeat.
Balen cracked a cold smile. No matter who this mysterious man was, once this guy was subdued, even if he were a figure from other races, Balen would not show any mercy.
Of course, before facing any of the family guard divisions, the masked man would have to first get through the rune formation defenses.
Fanzo noticed something in the far distance and said hurriedly, "Lord Balen, look...."
Balen was jolted back to his senses as he squinted his eyes and noticed an imposing, tall figure, adorned in a horrifying white skull mask and two red, ominous horns, walking at a leisurely pace towards this mansion.
A dark black aura covered his entire figure, and the energy radiated outward, like intense black smoke.
Each of his steps left a black, charred footprint in the grounds.
Looking at that terrifyingly imposing figure walking towards the heavily armed Vex family mansion like that, Balen could not help but have a bad feeling in his heart. Something inside of him instinctively knew that this skull-masked man was not a human.
It was definitely an organism belonging to the most likely ghost race. If the skull mask said anything, it was possibly a mighty death knight. Balen remembered that the reports from the surviving academy students said a mighty 4th-phase Death Knight was present during the academy attack.
Professor Galagar Gareth was barely able to inflict a serious injury on him by sacrificing all of his life force, and the valkyrie who erupted with all of her hidden power had barely managed to kill this dark death knight.
Balen activated a few wide-area scanning artifact mechanisms spread across the Vex family. Trying to ascertain the actual phase of this ghostly being. But to his shock, he was unable to identify. Then, after further inspection of the artifact’s feedback, Balen realized that the scanning signals were being blocked.
Which meant that the other party was wearing an artifact to block the scanning. This also confirmed that the opponent was most definitely weaker than a late 4th phase. This somewhat eased his worries about the worst possibility.
Looking at the Masked Figure, Balen sneered in his heart, this guy would indeed be no easy opponent; however, if a bunch of academy children could topple an army of the ghost race, then how could the forces of his mighty family not be able to kill this one fellow?
Everyone on the side of the Vex family held their breath in anxiousness as they all saw the masked, dreadful figure standing on the doorstep of the mansion. Waiting for him to step inside, because the moment he did so, this monster would be inflicted by countless attacks coming from the various rune formations, and it would also impose various debuff effects on this figure.
But at that moment, they all saw the masked man flash a chilling smile that looked entirely artificial. The skull-face, smiling with a savage look, was certainly not a pleasing sight to any normal human. That was for sure.
As for the reason he smiled, they would find out soon enough. The masked man extended both of his dark hands, through his sharp, elongated claws, and small dark threads shot out in specific directions, almost like the knitting of a dark spiderweb.
Those black threads seeped into each of the small and big nodes of the massive rune formation. Most of the people watching the masked man wore puzzled expressions as he carried on. Some of the guards even began to sneer, thinking that this ghostly, mysterious figure might not be stepping into the formation out of fear.
But on the third floor, Balen’s face had turned pale; he could not believe what he was seeing. As the man with the highest runic mastery present there, he could see it clearly, through some incomprehensible means.
This person was clogging the formation nodes, reducing the formation’s efficiency by 70% or more. This was practically no less than directly turning off their rune formations, and this was one of their most powerful killer rune formations at that.