Chapter 105

"Are you sure we are going in the correct direction? Feels like we are walking in circles…" Ray voiced his feelings when he saw the same kind of boulder for the nth time.

His AI and Satellite both show he is walking deeper through the dead forest. However, to his eyes. He is walking through the same place over and over again. Coupled with his distrust with Lilith, Ray couldn't help but doubt her.

As always, Lilith ignored him and didn't even attempt to talk unless necessary. She just keeps walking at a steady pace through the forest of leafless tree trunks.

Few more minutes later, Ray couldn't help it anymore and stopped on his track before abandoning this vain act. He summoned Ouroboros and took to the sky instead of walking. Why bother trekking through this confusing maze when he can fly.

Not even a second after he fly through the treeline, a sharp cry of an eagle is heard and something slashes his back.

"Damnit! First flying lizard, now a bird." Ray grumbled with immense annoyance but his hand already entered his inventory to pull out the weapon he had in mind that fit his requirements of precision and rapid fire.

The BLACK CM 800 Jupiter materialized in his hand from a mass of digital blue holographic cubes. Then rerouted most of his energy to his maneuverability. He learned a lesson that in any dogfight, speed is the most important in a battlefield absence of cover and advantageous terrain. His finger comfortably lay on the trigger while his cybernetics enhanced eyes searching for his target.

"I leave the evasion to you." Ray whispered to his AI before activating Hold The Line skill for damage increase and pulling his trigger which resulted in a blue beam ejected from the sniper's muzzle and hit the first abomination aimed on his sight.

Then the suit moves rapidly to evade the pack of Griffin trying to maul him and rend his flesh apart to satiate their hunger. While Ray turned into after image with all six thrusters executing the Ignition Boost maneuver, beams caused by projectile infused with lethal amounts of electricity accurately hit those Griffins to continuously zap them and also crippling their wings.

To Lilith's surprise, Griffin should have high tolerance to magic attack enough to qualify a medium magic resistance but the electricity she is witnessing didn't seem to be affected by magic resistance. Those lightning dances through the sky and electrocute the Griffins even if separated by a few meters.

She thinks of this as another of the hero's cheat-like powers that defy the normal everyday logic her creator is always talking about.

Meanwhile Ray continues to release his previous pent up frustration on these completely unrelated monsters since he didn't have any outlet to release.

His figure flashes continuously without stopping while his sniper rifle accurately takes out the swarm of Griffins coming from all directions of this forest. Coupled with low visibility, the horde of Griffins seems endless.

"That's enough, I think. We are wasting precious time killing monsters that will just be respawned immediately and endlessly." Lilith said before she folded the Victorian parasol and unsheathed the hidden blade in the umbrella.

Time feels like it is slowing down when it doesn't. The blade immediately makes a cut when it's fully unsheathed and one slashes multiply into two, then four, then eight and so on until thousands of them dice all Griffins into small meat cubes. Leaving Ray speechless at the display of might.

Lilith smirks pridefully behind her veil, clearly happy that Ray is amazed by her display of power and indirectly flaunts the achievement of her creator as the creation of her creator, the Demon Prince of Greed, Mammon.

"Let's go, better conquer the dungeon than wasting time on this endless stream of monsters." Lilith said as she unfold her parasol again and continued walking without waiting for Ray's response.

Without a chance to refute, Ray grumbled again like that one always moody uncle one would see in the New Year celebration.

(In Chinese new year, married people need to hand out red pockets to unmarried ones. So, they will always be reluctant to go celebrate and always be moody.)

———

"Psst. Should we ask what is happening?" Cecilia whispered to her peers that stare back at her, telling her to do it instead of asking them to.

"*Sigh* Are we supposed to just wait? It's been almost a day passed and Ray and the others still haven't contacted us or returned." Cecilia complained before giving Ophis a glance.

Ophis, unlike the usual, is in a terrible mood. The aura around her radiating a chilling sensation that threatened to freeze anyone that annoyed her down to the bones. However, she remained silent as if thinking of something but didn't wish to disclose it to the others. Well, until Cheshire nonchalantly walked up to the angry Dragon God and asked.

"Phis, where is papa?" Cheshire asked while holding her stomach that coincidentally growled.

"Don't know. I cannot sense Ray anymore." Ophis said with expressionless face but the intensified pressure said otherwise.

"Cheshire hungry?" Ophis asked again which Cheshire replied with rapid nodding like a chicken pecking on the food.

Ophis look difficult for a moment before remembering her dragon followers. Perhaps they can get food for Cheshire. However, a second thought later, she dismissed the idea when remembered her experience tasting their cuisine.

"Ah, she is hungry? How about we make dinner? It's sunset soon and the others are also hungry. Right?" Houki said before looking at her peer for support.

Cecilia and Laura just nodded to tag along on Houki's idea. Cecilia herself is honestly also hungry. Laura felt hungry too but negligible to her performance which is why she kept her silence till now.

"Then, we decided to have our dinner then." Houki confirmed after seeing others' decisions.

"I will go hunt some wild game." Laura volunteered and went back into the thicket.

"I will do the cooking." Houki said as she is the one who proposed the decision.

"Me t-" Cecilia also wanted to join Houki to cook but immediately stopped by Houki and the sudden stare from Ophis.

Even the Dragon God feels dread down her spine when hearing Cecilia will also cook.

Yao and Myui, who had become background characters, joined Cheshire and entertained each other until dinner was served. Though Yao will assist with the cooking later.

"Is it fine to allow Miss Laura to enter the forest alone?" Yao asked Cecilia and Houki out of the blue.

"It's fine I guess. Our IS still can detect her location without problem. Besides, she is a strong and capable fighter. I doubt hunting some rabbit or deer will be difficult since she can use her IS." Cecilia shared her opinion while sitting on a log, waiting for Houki making a campfire only for Yao to conjure a small flame and direct it to the bundle of dried twigs and leaves.

"Speaking of which, can you teach us magic?" Houki asked Yao after seeing her perform magic again.

"Sure but I don't know if you or Cecilia have the necessary aptitude and talent to learn spell casting." Yao replied after noting that Cecilia also has interest in the topic.

"We can at least try, right?" Houki pleaded with Yao while looking at Cecilia for support.

Cecilia also joined and pleaded with Yao to teach them magic.

"Sure, I'm not exactly against any of you learning magic. Magic is often regarded as a dangerous and forbidden art for a reason. Ones will require great discipline and long training to master a magic enough to not kill themselves while spell casting." Yao lectured the two.

"Yes. I used to have an opportunity to be trained in spell casting by my late Lord Father's order. However, I quit just two weeks in because I simply didn't have the aptitude to perform a stable spell. The spell I cast always failed and recoiled on my own body." Myui, who suddenly appeared behind Yao, recounts her bad experience with learning spell casting.

"Hum… if so, I can spare time to teach you spell casting. But, after we finish cooking our dinner for Lady Cheshire." Yao agreed, which received excited cheer from Cecilia while Houki thanked Yao deeply for her help.

———

Shorter than he expected, Ray exited the maze-like path and arrived in a surprisingly verdant area. In a precise circular area, green grass, trees filled with leaves instead of barren tree trunks and a massive tree no less than a tower one would see on a castle.

Immediately few Griffins rush down the gigantic tree and assault Ray instead of Lilith due to their level difference.

Ray jumped back and immediately opened fire at the incoming eagle and lion mutant. However he is forced to abandon his sniper rifle because the Griffins are closing in very fast. Ray swapped for RIA 30 Strikeforce shotgun instead for the close range combat and actually more effective attack against the Griffins explained by Lilith.

So, apparently monsters have attributes and using countering attributes against the monster will deal higher damage than neutral attributes like electric when Griffin's attribute is Forest and Wind. Obviously, fire damage is more effective against the Griffins than electric but Ray still favors the CM 800 Jupiter due to overall higher stable DPS than RIA 30 Strikeforce shotgun that have slow fire rate and small clip size. Though for this situation, swapping to the shotgun to kill his opponent faster is more important.

Each pull of the trigger unload glowing hot tungsten BBs into the flesh of the Griffins. Total eight shots were made and each shot was accompanied by a pained shriek of the Griffins that was unnecessarily loud with the head of an eagle. Though, those Griffins are far from defeated due to their high levels that also means higher HP.

Lilith only witnesses silently without any attempt to assist Ray who is evading the enraged attack from the injured pack of Griffins as he reloads a fresh shell into his shotgun.

"Let me give you all a taste of my new creation." Ray proudly declared after finishing reloading his newly modified shotgun shells he made along the way.

As usual, the shotgun fired very bright glowing yellow metal BBs into the Griffin's flesh but exploded after a second of delay which tore the monster apart and left a messy trail of gore on the ground.

Even Lilith turns her head away from the lack of fineness of Ray's method. However, Ray is very satisfied and happy his first attempt of adding his magic to improvise his weapons actually worked!

His happiness is apparent in his wide grin of satisfaction, relishing on the bloody mess he left behind after brutalizing the poor Griffin. He feels like something within him is awakening. Something very wrong, yet giving such euphoric sensation from the adrenaline rushing up his brain.

Ray continue his brutal murder with invigorated thrill for more of the euphoric sensation. Chasing after it but failed to reach it just by a hair breadth. Someone is whispering to his ears that he must reach a greater height to experience the addictive sensation again. However, before he got drunk by pleasure, a knock to his head snapped him back to reality.

"Honestly, to get high in battle and lose control of yourself in such a place. This is why men are hopeless. Of course, with the exception of my creator."

"You are lucky to have an ally to help you snap back before you get out of control." The snappy tone of the dissatisfied Lilith rang in Ray's ears as the adrenaline rush expired.

He wondered what happened to himself as such a thing had never happened before. When he looks into his health monitoring record by the AI, everything is normal and not even any toxin or drug enters his body.

"No need to get bewildered, seeking for an answer to your previous outburst. This is the territory of Demon and simply being around Demon can intensify your emotions, especially those of the vice category."

"Though, your resistance is quite decent to resist my Demonic aura for a long duration before suffering its effect." Lilith explained before disappearing and reappearing on the lowest tree branch above before vanishing again using her insanely high agility stats to perform instantaneous movement technique.

"The heck are you lecturing me like I'm the one guilty when my outburst is caused by your aura, damnit!" Ray shouted on top of his lungs out of frustration before following suit to climb this gigantic tree with Ouroboros' flying capability.

—————

(Pls ignore, just my rant of frustration.)

To those that anticipated and are playing Nikkei, I wanted to say that my dissapointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. Fk those who make the game to cuck my device from playing the game. I'm blue balled by a game that I waited for a whole damn year.