Looking at the man who was desperately attempting to crawl away, Damien’s eyes shone with a light of curiosity. In the next instant, he had already arrived in front of him.
“D-don’t come closer!” The man screeched in terror.
He had been living in leisure, taking care of his post as he had been ordered to before he was suddenly engulfed in a sea of nigh inextinguishable flames. If he hadn’t hastily erected a barrier at the last second, he didn’t doubt he would be dead by now.
“Oh? You can actually speak cohesively, huh. I somewhat expected it, but it’s still good to know.” Damien commented. He had no sympathy for this man at all.
The man continued trying to crawl back, but his house was already at the bad end of the cave. It didn’t take long for his body to hit the wall. Shivers ran down his spine as he realized there was really no escaping the monster in front of him.
“P-please! I’ll tell you anything if you let me live!”
“Wow, I didn’t even have to do the torturing before you gave up. That certainly makes things easier.” Damien said, his shoulders slightly relaxing as if he had let go of some tension.
The man smiled inwardly. As he thought, a brat like the one in front of him wouldn’t be experienced enough in the real world.
The man’s burnt arm slumped to the floor as if he had lost strength, but in reality, he was reaching towards his pocket. Even if he died here, he needed to inform the others that he had been compromised.
As if not noticing the man’s movements, Damien stared into his eyes and began questioning him. “So? Let’s start with the simple stuff. Who do you work for? What is your purpose? What are those things I just killed?”
The man seemed to hesitate slightly before his eyes dimmed. Answers started rolling out of his mouth. “I-I can’t say who I work for. I really don’t know. They simply tell me what to do, and I follow. My body moves on its own. Even my purpose is something I don’t know. The only thing I know is that they want me to kill every human I see.
“As for those, they are simply monsters we have subdued and corrupted, nothing more. I swear this is the truth.”
The man’s hand quickly reached his pocket. While he continued spouting nonsense, he retrieved a silver bell and tried to clamp his hand down on it. However…
“Eh?”
Regardless of what he tried, his hand wouldn’t move as he commanded it to. When he darted his eyes towards his right side, he saw a fine black line on the area connecting his shoulder to the rest of his body.
Thump.
His arm cleanly fell off, causing black blood to spurt out of his shoulder.
“Ahhh!”
The man screamed on instinct, but there was no pain. Perhaps the fact that he couldn’t feel what had happened even now was even more terrifying than if he had actually felt the pain.
“Hahaha! I didn’t think you would actually be stupid enough to pull something, but I guess for those assholes to assign you to a post so far out in this realm, you couldn’t have actually been someone worth fostering.”
Damien grinned. This place was like the backwoods of the secret realm, where even the barriers that Feng Qing’er had found weren’t present. There was no way they’d send anyone of note to facilitate this place.
But that didn’t mean the man in front of him was entirely useless. Damien looked towards the man’s pocket, slashing his arm and causing the man’s entire leg to be severed from his body and fly into Damien’s grasp.
Quickly using lightning to sear the wound shut so the man didn’t bleed out, Damien took a silver bell out of the pocket of the severed leg and fiddled with it curiously.
“This is what you were banking your hopes on? I assume it’s some sort of communication device? No, it’d be better for me if there was a tracker installed as well.”
The man shivered slightly at Damien’s words.
“No way? There’s actually a tracker? What would you guys even need a tracker for? The only function it’d have is to help your enemies.”
Although Damien had been taking the whole situation lightly, it wasn’t the same for the man in front of him. Not only his arm, but even his leg had been completely severed. Not to mention the searing lightning that burned his wounds shut.
The man was doing everything he could to stop himself from convulsing from the pain. His will had already been shattered the second Damien took the plaque from him. This time, he was truly acting so that he could maybe have a chance to live.
“P-please spare my life, senior…I will tell you everything. There is indeed a tracking device that lets us locate each other within the plaque. The reason being that we need it when we coordinate our armies for larger excursions.
“As for your previous questions, I truly don’t know the identities of those in charge. I only know that they want human blood to be spilled unto the lands. That is the command I received. Those creatures you killed are simply inferior versions of us. They hold no real value or sentience.”
Damien nodded. Pretty much everything he said was within his expectations. The only thing he was wondering about was the command the man had received.
‘To spill human blood unto the lands…although I don’t put the Nox above random slaughter like that, it doesn’t strike me as their motive this time. If it was, then there’d be no need for structure within the ranks of those they send.’
If the Nox just wanted slaughter, they could just send a few of these 3rd class beings in every direction and easily achieve their goals. There was no reason to even create or use these inferior abominations.
‘The 3rd classes never moved. There was simply no need for them to. But there must be a purpose for their presence.’
Damien looked at the silver plaque in his hand. This would most likely be his best bet at answers. As for the man in front of him, he had become entirely useless.
Suddenly, Damien thought of a point. “Oi, what happens if I inject untainted mana into this?”
He had seen them before, artifacts that adhered to certain mana signatures. He didn’t want to risk having all his enemies flee or become aware of his interference due to a simple mistake.
The man’s eyes widened for a second before he tried to rein in his expressions, but he had realized it was already too late. Sighing, he ended up bitterly answering Damien’s question again.
“The plaque will alert others that I have been compromised. The only way to truly use it is by injecting our holy mana into it.”
The only saving grace he had was that if Damien needed his mana to use the plaque, his life was guaranteed. And as long as he lived, nothing else mattered.
But unlike what he thought, Damien simply nodded before slashing his arm out again. Before the man could even process what was happening, he found his view of the world flipped 180 degrees before his consciousness faded into nonexistence.
“Devour.”