Rise of the Eromancer

Chapter 132 A Shame

"Has he just been sitting here?"

"Guild master!"

In one of the many abandoned buildings of the ruined city, a group of people were currently hiding in the shadows. They were previously just staring outside the window, seemingly strictly watching someone and only now turned around once when their guild master arrived.

The guild master of the Cerberus guild, Edward; even him, however, quickly looked outside the window.

"What's the Lowborn even been doing there?" Edward let out a small groan as he squinted his eyes.

"He… has just been sitting there," the scout meekly said as he also glanced back at the person they had actually been tailing from the start, "After killing a minitaur, he's just been sitting on top of that car without even moving a single inch."

"What's… he doing?" Edward whispered.

"Tell him what we saw."

"What? You tell him."

"Can the two of you just fucking tell me what's going on!?" Edward could not help but raise his voice as his men suddenly started nudging and elbowing each other, "You're supposed to be scouts, it's your role to report me everything!"

"Rhys…" The two scouts once again stared out the window, "...He bit his hand before just sitting on top of the car. Also, there are dead people in the car."

"...Did he kill them? Crazy son of a bitch," Edward could not help but breathe out as he shook his head, "These Lowborns are really the lowest of the lowest scum. Biting his hand is probably some sort of ritual."

"...No, the minitaur killed them."

"No—" Edward smiled, "Rhys killed them…"

Edward then raised his hand, and as soon as he did so, several more people entered the dark room… more than a dozen of them.

"...And we tried to stop it."

***

Rhys has been sitting on top of the car for almost an hour now, waiting for the monsters to come.

It was weird; based on Maria's report, the monsters in the Underworld beneath Mankappan had not really stopped being in a frenzy ever since the incident in the mall — and he was sure he was the reason for that…

…and yet even after an hour of dropping a drip of his blood on the ground, there hasn't even been a single sign of any monsters. He even made sure to hang the minitaur on the only street lamp still left standing on the street.

Was their theory… wrong? Does Rhys actually not attract monsters at all? No — there have already been enough instances to prove their theory correct.

…This could only mean that the monsters are already being obliterated before they could even reach his position.

"Strongest Explorer in the country…" Rhys then turned his eyes to the western part of the city. And even though there were buildings blocking the horizon, Rhys could still see glaciers and towers of ice protruding from the distance; the sky, slightly dim from the endless snow that had been raining down since earlier.

Rhys then slightly raised his hand, catching a snowflake that happened to reach and land where he was. And as he stared at the snowflake, it did not even show any signs of melting — in fact, Rhys could actually feel the minuscule snowflake piercing through his palm.

Rhys had already thought Ayesha to be the pinnacle of strength. He had actually already tested his strength by sparring with Ayesha — and that was also when he found out that he did not exactly copy 100% of someone's powers… because he was just thrown and slammed around by Ayesha like a wet towel.

After that, he tested his wind abilities against Lina — and true enough, his was weaker.

It most probably had something to do with the single Large Gray Heart that was now floating above their heads; slightly filled up with a red that acted like some sort of liquid.

Ayesha's large Gray Heart was slightly filled more than Lina's — and although Rhys has not really measured any percentages, aside from how much they like him, he was sure the red liquid was also an indication of how much of their power he has.

But even what he has now… somehow already seems enough. Ayesha's strength, Lina's wind abilities, Maria's shadow traversa, Arachnea's threads and inhuman reflexes, and then his most useful ability — recovering all of his stamina at will.

What he has now is enough, but he also knows that he needs more if he truly wants to topple the world upside down. If he had Esme's ability… he could probably already do whatever he wished.

But alas, as he looked at all the glaciers that almost reached the top of the dome, the only thing he could really do was sigh as he dropped the chilling snowflake from his palm; watching it as it very slowly danced its way to the ground… slightly freezing the area around it as soon as it made contact.

"...Hm," Rhys blinked a couple of times as he wondered about Esme's words. She had all this power, and yet she was still afraid of meeting Arachnea.

Just… how strong are the gods, truly? Even Ayesha told him that Arachnea was just playing with her when the two of them fought.

Arachnea also seemed to know whose blood it was that was flowing through his veins while no one else did.

Answers — he wanted answers from the gods. Maybe then, he would be able to fully—

And before he could finish his words, his body instinctively stood up; completely destroying the roof as he leaped into the air and crushing the corpses inside. It did not matter, however, as the car was just suddenly blown away by some sort of low-pitched blast.

Rhys squinted his eyes as he saw several silhouettes moving toward his position. And so, instead of letting himself just land back to the ground, he threw a thread at the building near him and hung from its walls.

Before he could make out the faces of the silhouettes, however, another blast made its way toward him — causing him to just glide across the wall before gracefully landing on the hard ground.

"No wonder you're so hard to kill…

…you move like a fucking mosquito."

"You…" Rhys's eyebrows quickly lowered as he finally made out who it was — his receding hairline and short stature, a clear indication of the guild master of the Cerberus guild.

"...You really are not going to stop until you kill me, huh?"

"No one who messes with the Cerberus guild gets unscathed, you motherfucker."

"Awoo! Awoo!"

"What the…" Rhys could not help but almost take a step back as the people who were with Edward started barking and howling like dogs.

"And today is the day you die, Rhys," a wide smirk crawled on Edward's face, "And we will make sure everyone knows that you are the villain of this story."

"You're… really persistent," Rhys could really only let out a sigh as he scanned Edward's men, "You're the one who provoked me first by sending those assassins back in the Explorer test."

"...What are you even talking about!?" Edward raised his voice, causing all the dust around him to be blown away in a ripple, "You started it by slandering my guild's name!"

"...Right," Rhys only breathed out as he was done scanning all of Edward's men. He was trying to find out whether or not Adam was one of them, but since nobody's hair was giving even a slight glow, it was safe to assume that he was not.

He had actually reviewed each of the members of the Cerberus guild specifically for this kind of scenario. And aside from Edward and Sylas, the only one that could truly prove to be a threat to him was Adam — the guild's only other Noble.

"Well, you should have planned this more," Rhys stared Edward in the eyes, "I—"

"Oh, I did," Edward scoffed before snapping his fingers. And as soon as he did so, several more people started appearing everywhere — some even on top of the building.

Rhys started scanning for Adam again, but he was still nowhere to be found.

"I brought half the guild here," Edward smirked as he pointed at Rhys, "You're done, boy."

"Hm," Rhys remained completely calm as he just let out a breath upon seeing their numbers. Although he could probably still win, the best thing to do here was to just escape — and he would easily just be able to do that with his shadow traversal.

"Men! Make sure our Lowborn friend here doesn't leave—"

"You've become very cheeky the time we have been separated, my lovely husband. It's almost a shame that I have to eat you."

"!!!"

And before Edward could finish his words, everyone watched as something large just suddenly fell from above, one of her legs, completely piercing through the top of his head straight down his crotch.

"Oh, disgusting…

…Did I just step on something?"

"It's…

…It's Arachnea!"

And just like that, the guild master of the Cerberus guild was dead.