Chapter 201: Don't Stand In His Way

The redhead only allowed himself that second to be glad that Jerry was still alive and that he had arrived on time. After that second his face hardened and his eyes turned cold.

He looked carefully at Jerry's body and seeing the wounds on the little girl's face his lips pursed slightly.

But despite how angry it made him see the little girl in that state, he controlled himself and kept looking.

The shirt that was too big for her own body was quite dirty and had several red spots as well as her pants and shoes but other than that there wasn't much else. All the buttons were in place and even though the clothes were damaged, they were intact.

This caused the redhead to have a much larger sigh of relief and he let his head droop for a moment.

"Praise the Monarch..." The redhead blurted out but as soon as he realized what he said he froze for a second before sighing in resignation.

"Repeating so much praise to a fake God has its consequences, huh?" The redhead murmured while shaking his head in self-reprimand.

Pushing aside his moment, Adryan returned his attention to the screen on his forearm.

His attention focused on the guards who were still trying to save their partner from the clutches of the civilians.

Red brows rose in genuine surprise and curiosity.

He had seen and heard the entire exchange leading up to this fight and he couldn't help but feel a little weird.

"I did that?" The redhead murmured not sure how to take or feel about this.

On one hand, he was quite proud that what he was doing as Mr. Holmes was appreciated by the people but on the other this was not what he was looking for at all.

"I mean... I already knew I would have an impact in the East Borough but not to the point where people would fight back when gangs attack them."

He doubted that the injuries that all the civilians had were because the guards were bored and wanted some fun. Some of the guards also have some bruises or broken lips, hell, one even has a black eye.

He looked at the face of the woman he supposedly saved in the past but although he found her a bit familiar he wouldn't say he recognized her.

If someone had asked him, the most he would say is that she looked familiar but he wouldn't be able to say where he saw her.

'Makes sense. With the number of people I rescue, it's hard to remember their faces and it's not like I stayed to chat with them later.' Adryan thought to himself with a slight nod.

Before cutting the connection. Adryan double-tapped his palm. His spirit vision came to life and the aura of the guards was revealed to him.

Of the 6 guards there, 3 auras were transparent and turbulent but the other 3 had different colors.

2 were a light red color that flickered like a faint and weak flame. The last one was a bluish-black color that seemed to want to distort itself.

"Interesting..." The redhead whispered at the same time he double-tapped his palm.

Satisfied with the information he had and not wanting to use more spirituality he might need, Adryan cut the connection but not before ordering his soldier to return to him.

With the golden dust wrapping around his forearm again, he remained silent looking at the horizon.

His expression was calm and serene.

"When I started acting like Holmes I only did it to digest my potion and earn some extra money. With how many gangs there are I never thought I would have a big impact. Just a random man wearing a mask, stealing from the gangs, and freeing slaves..." The redhead whispered before smiling amused and shaking his head.

"Hehe, who would have thought huh? I became a superhero."

He couldn't help but think of his favorite superhero. A certain photographer whose favorite hobby was swinging around town in red and blue spandex while making criminals sticky.

"What was the phrase like? <With great power comes great responsibility>?" He said to the air with a raised eyebrow before shaking his head.

"I doubt he would be proud of how I do it. I'm sure he would see me as a psychopath who has to be jailed at all costs..." He said with a small, self-despicable smile.

"If I think about it my style is more like Fran Castle... Hehe~ I wonder if the Church of the Angry Pigeon is looking for staff? I bet they would love me~" He teased with a provocative smirk before sighing and getting up with a grunt.

"Well! I can't let my fans hanging." With that said, he began to draw the sphere of light in his mind...

...

Red eyes opened and Adryan grunted as he cracked his neck. Getting up from where he was sitting in a dark alley. The redhead rolled his shoulders and turned his neck from side to side.

"She's inside. She's hurt but alive" He said as he began to do some stretching.

Hearing the news, Flora couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief as she nodded inwardly.

"That's good. It seems you've arrived just in time. Your lord's soldiers are certainly very skilled at their job."

"Praise the Monarch for that." Adryan said calmly as he finished his stretches.

"And what is the plan?" Flora asked curiously as she appreciated the view.

She could see how Adryan was much more relaxed now so she wouldn't feel bad about appreciating the mountains.

'This is the price you have to pay for worrying a Jacob...' Flora thought annoyed but also relieved that the redhead was better.

"I go in, break some bones, burn several bastards, and get her out. Simple." Adryan said nonchalantly as he accommodated the Burnt Band on his left arm and Vecchio Pomodoro on his left hand.

As stated by the one named Tomas, this was not Dead Rose's main base but another building that they use to hide the shipment of kidnapped people.

Using his rat soldier, he went around the building counting the guards and the paths they took.

Security was decent and there were a total of 20 guards, 4 of them Beyonders.

Two were Hunters and the other was from the Lawyer Pathway. He knew that the guard was from the Lawyer's path because his aura was the same as the aura of the craftsman's granddaughter. And thanks to that he knew that the guard could not be higher than Sequence 8: Barbarian.

'Why are there so many Hunters? Was there a discount I didn't know or what?' The redhead joked internally before shaking his head.

With how easily he got his ingredients for his Hunter potion is not a surprise it wouldn't be hard for other people.

The last Beyonder was the man named Tomas. His aura was one that Adryan had already become very familiar with...

After all...

The first Beyonder he killed was from that same pathway.

'Why the fuck are they always from Prisoner Pathway? Couldn't they be something different? ' The redhead clicked his tongue in annoyance.

'It seems my fate is tied to the Beyonders of this Pathway huh? Too bad... For them.' Adryan grinned sharply.

If fate wanted to throw Prisoners in his way then let it be! Let fate throw as many as it wants!

He would just burn them till they were only black ashes in the soles of his boots. Even if he had to kill 1,10,100 Prisoners-Werewolfs- Wraiths it didn't matter!

He would burn them all!

After all, if he managed to ascend and become the Calamity of Destruction he would have to face the Top of that pathway.

How could he face that Deformed Tree if he couldn't deal with some petty termites?

A slight spiritual warning was all it took for Adryan to put that issue in the back of his mind but not before making one last joke.

'Well. It looks like someone can't take a joke.' Adryan thought while rolling his eyes.

It wasn't anything he couldn't handle but still, he wouldn't underestimate them.

The last time he did that he was almost killed and ended up having to blow up his house to escape...

He was still salty about it.

Finishing adjusting the glove and beginning the countdown to take it off, Adryan leaned his back against the wall and waited a few moments.

The sound of very small legs moving rapidly towards him reached his ears.

Looking to his side and coming out of a small pile of trash, a small black rat with reddish-orange eyes stopped in front of him.

The rat rose to its paws and gave a military salute while screeching something that Adryan assumed was a salute.

'This is a bit bizarre...' The redhead commented to himself at such a curious scene.

'It is one thing for a bird to do it, another for a rat to do it. The rat looks more weird... Does this count as discrimination against rats?' The masked man thought with a flat expression while judging what was in front of him.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Adryan nodded to the rat soldier and spoke.

"Good job soldier, you can rest now."

The rat screeched again and it closed its eyes, in a second it dissolved into golden dust that flew up to Adryan's forearm.

As soon as that happened, he quickly reset the configuration from rat soldier to human soldier.

With that done and before leaving, Adryan smiled mischievously.

"Dear Flora. Why didn't you say goodbye to your husband? After all the effort he made, you could have at least said something, you know?"

"When will you leave behind that I was a rat?" The demigod asked tiredly while shaking her nonexistent head in resignation.

"Is too funny to just forget about it." Adryan said with complete honesty.

"Hmm!" Flora huffed an annoyed response.

The corners of Adryan's lips only lifted more at that.

Shaking his head, his smile disappeared and his expression turned serious.

With a bit of spirituality, the soldier's tattoo shimmered in golden dust, and in a moment the soldier was standing in front of him. This time he was dressed almost the same way as he is, with the same modified windbreaker and dark clothes. But the difference was that these were a dark red tone and that the mask he had was expressionless and only had 2 holes where the eyes would be.

"In this appearance, your name will be Ñoño. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" The Ñoño soldier straightened his back and gave a military salute.

Adryan just nodded, satisfied with his work.

He put his hand in one of the many pockets of his jacket and from it, he took out a beautiful and fine black metal pocket watch with silver details.

He extended this watch to Ñoño.

"As soon as we leave you will turn the crown to the right. You will Disorder the basement so that no sound can escape."

The soldier nodded vigorously. He took the pocket watch and held it in his left hand.

"Yes Sir!"

Without anything else to say, he moved to stand next to his masked partner and placed his hand on his shoulder.

'Good Soldier.' Adryan thought with the corners of his lips slightly raised but they quickly fell back to his hard expression.

"Get ready."

Ñoño didn't say anything else, he just nodded seriously and tensed his body. Ready to jump into action.

"Flora, ready?" The redhead asked calmly.

"Always Princess." Flora responded with a smirk.

The corner of the redhead's lip lifted slightly.

With nothing more to say and with just one thought, the shadows embrace them and in the next second, they were nowhere to be seen.

The distance from where Adryan was with his soldier to where Jerry was was around 50 meters. So the redhead had to do 4 Shadow Leaps.

...

In the basement of the hidden Dead Rose base with the guards.

"SONS OF BITCHES. WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE?!" Bryan roared as he was held back by a dark-haired man with tanned skin and another man in his thirties with deep eyes.

The reason for Bryan's anger was simple if one looked at his head. There was a large handful of hair missing and where it used to be there was a lot of blood.

The civilians that even though they now had more injuries than before and looked more tired, the vast majority had big smiles on their faces.

Bryan only saw red and scrambled further to free himself from their grasp.

"I'M GOING TO KILL THEM!!"

A rather tall man dressed in just a simple brown vest leaving his muscular torso bare and green pants watched all this with annoyance. He was Barbarian Frank.

Beside him stood a man of clear Bayam ancestry and a woman with brown hair and fiery eyes. They were Hunter Alan and Hunter Cecilia.

"Bryan let him go. We can't risk screwing up the cargo."

Bryan looked annoyed at this man but as soon as he was going to say something the man flexed his muscles and his gaze became extremely hard. An invisible heavy aura surged around him that made Bryan pale a little and even the previously smiling civilians were now uneasy and subconsciously all tried to get as far away from the man as they could.

"S-sorry Franco. I got carried away." Bryan stuttered a bit and Franco just huffed.

"Let it be the last time. Now go to the infirmary to have that crater checked out."

Bryan nodded vigorously and the men holding him finally let go.

Watching the balding Bryan walk to the door with a slight limp, the Bayam ancestry man snorted derisively.

"Getting caught that easy? And that's how you call yourself a member of Dead Rose?"

Hearing the insult and a few meters from the door, Bryan stopped and turned his head slowly.

"What did you just say, Alan?" The baldhead asked, his tone charging with barely contained anger. His day had already been extremely shitty and his patience was already at the limit.

Alan smiled and turned to look at Franco who gave him a sharp look in response.

The hunter's smile disappeared and the man quickly changed what he said as he approached Bryan at a quick pace.

"That I was going to accompany you to the infirmary! Or did you forget that we always have to be in pairs?" His voice was somewhat nervous by the time he got to Bryan's side, who didn't try to hide his annoyance in the least.

"Does it have to be you seriously? Couldn't it be Cecilia?"

Alan sighed exasperated at his partner's aptitude. He turned to look at Franco and Cecilia, more specifically Cecilia in search of support.

But just as he was opening his mouth and was going to say something, the smell of blood reached his nose.

He frowned slightly. The room already had the smell of blood thanks to Bryan and the cargo but he couldn't help but feel that there was something wrong...

Very wrong.

A chill ran up his spine and he was a little scared.

"Cecilia I think something is happening." The man said to his partner but she just looked at him without saying anything.

This only scared Alan even more and he began to walk up to the woman slowly.

"Cecilia? Are you okay?"

There was no answer.

Just then Alan noticed that the woman wasn't blinking and her previously focused eyes looked lost.

Alarmed, Alan turned to Franco, and just as he was about to say something he froze.

Franco also had the same lost vision and his mouth was slightly open and drooling.

Alan unconsciously took a step back.

"What the fuck?" The man muttered in shock.

"Hehe~ I'm sorry but your friends can't answer you at the moment."

A dark and unknown chukle rang out that made everyone present freeze in their places.

"WHO IS IT?! SHOW YOURSELF COWARD!!" Bryan, now pale, screamed in horror. His revolver was drawn and pointing everywhere.

The other guards were the same and were looking around in terror.

Bryan turned to see the abnormally still Cecilia and Franco and yelled.

"REACT IMBECILES!! WE HAVE AN INTRUDER!!"

But again, they didn't react.

Alan, who had the sharpest senses in the place, was the first to realize the problem. He paled even more than the others and his eyes filled with fear, it seemed that his soul had left his body because of how white he was.

The voice had come from behind Franco and Cecilia!!

"Oh! Please forgive my manners. Let me introduce myself." The same voice sounded and now everyone else also noticed the same problem as Alan.

A gloomy silence filled the basement and everyone present saw how something moved in the dark.

Coming out of the shadows behind their backs. A tall man dressed entirely in black calmly walked out.

His arms were extended to the necks of the Beyonders and as he came out he gracefully lowered them. The light of the gas lamps reflected on the scarlet blades that dripped a red liquid.

In the same second that the blades left the necks of Cecilia and Franco they fell to the ground dead, blood dripping from their necks where the hidden blade had struck fatally.

Alan looked terrified at this.

'How?! How?! How?! I didn't hear it! I didn't hear it! I didn't hear it!' The man froze completely. Since the man revealed himself and walked out of the darkness, he never hear him!

It's like the one who killed his companions wasn't even there even though he was seeing him with his own eyes!

'A Wraith...No...' Alan finally snapped out of his shock and noticed the creepy mask on the man's face.

"Mr. Holmes!" The civilians in the cage cried out with relief and tears in their eyes.

'Worse...' The man thought terrified as he tried to reach for the revolver in his belt holster.

Fush! Thump!

"Huh?" The words fell softly from his lips. Everything seem to slow down in his perspective.

He looked strangely at the masked man in front of him.

When had he raised his hand? Didn't he lowered them?

Feeling a stinging, burning pain in his chest, Alan looked down.

A dagger made of flames was piercing his chest.

Looking up again he saw how Holmes had already moved from his previous spot and charged at another guard with birds made of fire dancing around him.

"How..." He could barely hear his own voice and his vision began to dim.

His knees gave out and before the rest of his body hit the ground, Alan was already dead.

In less than 15 seconds. Three Beyonders were killed.