The Cyrus Stone (2)

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Outside the Allen household

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At the side of the mansion where the servant's quarters were located, one of the maids was locking the door when all of a sudden a long arm grabbed her by the neck and dragged her out of the mansion. When the hand dragged her miles away from the mansion, the guy in the maid uniform appeared behind her.

"Don't try to resist. I will give you a quick death," the guy said however he didn't think that the maid would actually listen to him.

'Something's not right...' his instinct warned him that there was something wrong with the maid. He quickly snapped her neck, just to be careful. However, the sound he heard was not something that he had expected to hear...

CREAK

'Creak?' he thought, as the maid turned her head at a 360-degree angle. She released some sort of white fumes from her mouth before turning into a metallic mannequin latched with a hologram device.

"What the fu-" Before he could shout a huge explosion overwhelmed his voice and spread across the whole area.

BOOM

The explosion wasn't strong enough to kill him, but it was enough to render him useless. The mage who stood far away from the shapeshifter was alerted by the explosion.

"That arrogant asshole, even after all the things I warned him about, he was rendered useless. Sigh... This is why I hate working with amateurs." The mage was so frustrated with the shapeshifter that he wanted to kill him right then. "Looks like we were discovered. I guess I have to finish the job by myself."

The mage chanted some words inaudibly before pointing his staff toward the mansion. "Fire blast."

Swoosh

Specks of fire particles gathered at the point of his staff as the trees around him started to burn. The flame particles slowly formed into a ball before they turned bigger and bigger...

"Go."

Swoosh

The giant fireball travelled towards the mansion at the speed of 40 m/sec before it hit the mansion with all its might.

BOOM Puff

A huge cloud of smoke covered the area. The explosion affected all those plants and animals that were near its range. Resulting in their deaths.

"May your souls find peace, innocent ones, please forgive me if you can," the mage bowed his head towards the mansion and turned away.

"Target detected... proceeding elimination."

ZAP

A robotic voice resounded in the vicinity before lasers started firing off from the place where the mansion was meant to be located.

"What the- Deflect!"

The mage managed to deflect the attack but he was not fast enough to read the direction of the attack. As a result, the laser managed to pierce a hole in his left shoulder.

ARGH

The mage was shocked to see the drones which came out of nowhere, however, he was even more shocked to see that the mansion was completely fine, even after taking such a powerful spell head-on. He thought that the spell was enough to destroy the building in one hit. He never expected the mansion to have such a huge barrier surrounding it. Moreover, the barrier was created out of pure energy, so how could he not sense it?

So, you people would probably ask me how I did it, right? Well, it's simple, the moment that mage released his attack, was the moment he became senseless to mana. It only lasted for a second, however, I was able to activate the barrier in that time. It was risky but fortunately, I was able to weaken him.

"Mana Barrier!"

The mage surrounded himself with mana barriers to prevent the drones from assaulting him head-on.

'Damn it! I should have been careful, I already suspected that something was wrong with this mission or, else those bastards would not have given me, my freedom, as a reward. Did Thomas Allen already know of this? Were we tricked? Are they toying with our lives?' the mage was confused about the situation, and angry with his superiors. He felt betrayed by them. He felt like he had been used even at the end of his life.

'Is this, the way I die?' The mage questioned himself while deflecting the high-pressure water that broke through his barrier.

ZAP

The drones attacked him with their energy guns, breaking through the rest of the barrier and piercing his right shoulder, making him lose his arm.

"Ahhhhhh!" the mage screamed in agony as his blood splattered around him. He dropped down to his knees as the blood started dripping from his mouth. His vision became blurry, as he saw a figure approaching him.

"Who... are you? *Cough*" The mage mastered his strength to ask one last question from the figure in front of him.

"The one, you were meant to kill," I answered.

"How?"

I squatted down on my knees before looking at his eyes. "Hm, it's complicated but since you are on the verge of death, I will tell you a secret."

"I... am the creator of this world. You see... today at 11 pm you were supposed to kill this child and gain your freedom. However, because of my interference, the future has changed, and the timeline has been altered. In this timeline, you die before the destined time and I, Ray Allen, live. This is not a fixed point anymore, one life for another, and as long as I don't tamper with the timeline too much, I will be able to manipulate it the way I want to. So, be happy to know that you didn't die a meaningless death." I whispered in his ear before clawing out his heart with my new gauntlet.

"Argh..." the mage had finally dropped dead on the ground.

"Sigh... This was quite tiring. Alfred, tell someone to clean up the corpse and tie up that shapeshifter before throwing him into the training room. We don't have a prison system so, Uncle's training room will have to do, for now." I walked up to Alfred with the blue heart in my hands. "And see, if you can put this up for the upcoming auction."

"As you wish, young master. I will see what I can do. Would you like to take a bath first?" Alfred took the heart off my hands and stared at my clothes which were stained with blood, not bothered by the cruelty that he had witnessed in front of him.

"Yes, I have to check something, so please prepare the bath for me."

"Has that stone piqued your interest?" Alfred stared at the silver stone in my right hand.

"It has, it looks like an ordinary stone, however, I have never seen such an unusual stone like this one. So, I want to test its properties."

"I see..." Alfred sighed. 'Looks like, our young master is still a kid, regardless of how intelligent he may seem.'

Finally, I completed my first step towards my plan. I had managed to survive in this world, in 'my' world. This may just be an easy task compared to what I am about to do in the future but that doesn't mean that I should give up.

I will survive till the end and make sure to kill the protagonist even if it's the last thing I do.

"Yes, that's the spirit, keep it up, kid!" Death screamed at me.

... While being haunted by Death.