chapter2

 Before Sylver's words fell, accompanied by the slight crunching sound of grass blades being trampled and folded and dull footsteps, the pair of scarlet finally left the cover of darkness completely, their massive bodies exposed to the eyes of everyone.

　　Silence.

　　It was hard to tell exactly what this thing was.

　　The overwhelming sense of suffocation and oppression was the most direct feeling it gave the two Dong brothers. The person in front of them - let's just call it a person - was more than two meters tall, blending in with the warhorse from the waist down, and its entire body was covered in thick armor, with aged rust rusting down with every step.

　　It carried an old and decayed scent, just as it had when Gregorio had watched it crawl out of the bottomless coffin, the scent of hell.

　　Its head seemed to be little more than a heavy helmet filled with a dark mist, two points of scarlet fire glowing eerily brightly in the place of its eyes, and it wielded the same rusty longsword, but one would never think that it wasn't sharp enough.

　　It glanced at Sylver in front of it, as if uninterested in him, and slowly turned its head towards Gregorio and Marvin under the tree.

　　Raising its hand, the sword pointed.

　　Gregorio covered the wound on the side of his waist, Sylver shared some of his injuries, but the excessive blood loss still made him dizzy in front of his eyes, and the moment he was pointed at by the sword's blade, reason and intuition all told him at the same time:

　　Run!

　　"Marvin you go first." In the blink of an eye, Gregorio realized that in the face of such a powerful enemy, they simply could not deal with it head-on, and this "Renato" ... who signed the blood pact in a hurry, Gregorio did not think that he would be able to The blood pact was made in haste, and Gregorio didn't think he'd be able to take on the creature without a fight.

　　Marvin looked at the centaur monster, and then looked at the blood-stained Gregorio and the side of the still unhappy Sylver, did not stage a boring and waste of time "to go together" drama, fierce teeth, turned around and into the dark forest, the figure was quickly swallowed by the fog.

　　And "it" just silently watched Marvin leave face to face, without any sign of chasing after him, and re-locked its sight on the bruised Gregorio, who seemed to be the only target.

　　Sure enough.

　　Being pointed at by the tip of the sword, Gregorio's heart sank, but he also confirmed his guess, the golden orb that he took from the coffin before was indeed the key prop, this monster should be a role similar to a guardian or something like that-

　　"You go too."

　　Sylver said coldly, he touched the bandage on his shoulder and sighed, "Leave this to me, you hurry up and find a way to leave, I don't want to waste too much time in this kind of boring and low-intelligence box."

　　"It's a Guardian, the level is supposed to be unbeatable at this stage, it might be possible if there's two of us-"

　　"You'll only slow me down." Sylver cut him off dryly, raising his lips in a smile, "Battle scum should have the awareness of battle scum, if you don't leave, beware that I'll move to take you out as well."

　　Gregorio choked and pursed his lips, intuition telling Gregorio: to trust him.

　　He seemed to have something to say, but in the end, he just looked deeply at the thin teenager, and before "it" could do anything, he turned and fled in the same direction as Marvin, dragging his wounded body with him.

　　As Gregorio took his first step, it moved.

　　Without any unnecessary movement, the rusty, heavy longsword sliced through the air, and with a brushing sound, the invisible sword energy tore through the air and chopped at Gregorio!

　　But Sylver also moved.

　　He picked up a dead branch on the ground, stood between Gregorio and "it", and raised his hand to gently block it like a child waving randomly.

　　The sword energy that could instantly cut a person in half just disappeared.

　　It was as if it had never existed.

　　Gregorio's figure disappeared into the mist in this fought-for moment, never to be seen again.

　　"I can't let you kill him." Sylver gripped the branch, those eyes seemed to contain the remaining embers of a blazing fire that had been forcibly cooled, and looked coldly at the knight: "Henry, after a long time of not seeing you, you seem to have forgotten about me."

　　The monster called Henry was as if it had not heard his words at all, as it let out a warhorse's neigh from its mouth, its hooves stirred violently, and it galloped towards Sylver!

　　Killing everything that stood in its way!

　　Bang--!

　　The crunching sound of the halberds clashing with each other served as the first horn of the battle, startling a small patch of black crows perched in the shadows, and no one could have imagined that this was the sound that could be made by the clash of a longsword and a tree branch. But, the moment Sylver's branch touched the longsword, a piece of the blade was chipped off raw, scattering rust in all directions.

　　The tremendous impact caused Henry to take two steps back, finally taking a serious look at Sylver, the eyesore that was blocking it from retrieving its lost object.

　　Sylver threw away the branch that had broken in two and picked up a new one, and the moment he got his hands on it, the dry, fragile stump became the sharpest weapon in the world.

　　This was his ability in the pure white world, called [Slayer], and as the time he had been in it grew longer, this power that had been lost for eight years gradually came back.

　　"It's not a surprise that you've forgotten me, after all, we don't know each other very well, but do you remember Zoey?"

　　Sylver added. Staring at the monster in front of him, who was far too tall for him, he didn't loosen up a bit in his body, despite the condescending words on his lips.

　　He was giving himself time to readjust.

　　Henry remained unresponsive as it pulled a rather ancient form of sword flourish, whistled wildly as black air spewed out of its helmet, and steered its horse towards Sylver for another charge!

　　Instead of dodging, Sylver took two steps towards it, and the distance between the two of them shrunk to nothing in the blink of an eye. The imagined exchange of blood and flesh did not happen, the teenager jumped, the air sideways with the stone held in his fingertips to block this powerful sword, at the same time, a flick of the wrist, accurately picked Henry's chest on the heart armor!

　　The specially thickened piece of armor instantly ruptured and flew out with the residual force, and Henry's chest cavity was exposed in front of Sylver's eyes, in the empty shell under the thick armor, there was only a heart that was still beating continuously, and the three rings of iron hoops locked tightly around the only living organ, making every beat hard, leaving nothing but a tremor.

　　A painful, struggling tremor.

　　"Roar-!"

　　The moment the heart was exposed Henry let out an inhuman howl, and the two points of red light in his helmet went out. As Sylver watched, it staggered back several steps, and "Boom!" The ground crashed into a giant tree.

　　Layers of cracks appeared on the outer layer of the iron band that held the heart in place, growing rapidly with the frequency of the heartbeat, and finally shattering with a loud bang!

　　The thick rust on the armor and the longsword fell off, and the patterns on each piece of armor and the forging marks on the sword blade were all visible.

　　It no longer looked like a zombie crawling out of an old coffin, but a real knight.

　　With one less layer of restraint, the heartbeat became much more steady and determined, and after a breath, the eyes lit up again.

　　Henry looked over at Sylver, who now seemed to have a modicum of sanity, the plain branch in the teenager's hand somehow cowing him.

　　It took two steps back, sensing that the guardian object had reappeared in another direction, and without further ado, it turned and spurred its horse away.

　　Hoo...

　　As the knight's figure disappeared from view, Sylver let out a long sigh of relief as the branches in his hands simultaneously turned into dust one by one and dissipated into the air.

　　Although he was able to turn anything into a weapon in his hands, the more fragile something was, the shorter the time it could be used, and the more irreversible damage it would incur.

　　Like this branch simply disappeared.

　　Sylver didn't go after it, he was a bit tired, carrying the Time Prisoner's Curse on him, having just come back and sharing Gregorio's wounds, and in poor shape.

　　Wondering how those two brothers were doing now, Sylver closed his eyes and held his breath as he felt the call from the blood bond and the Prisoner card.

　　It was like searching for a little trace of light in a world of total darkness of perception.

　　It was found.

　　A breath later, Sylver opened his eyes, and the blood contract link with Gregorio told him that his opponent was not in danger now. A normal Prisoner could rely on the cards to instantly return to where his master was, but before the Joker had a chance to teach him the operation, Sylver had been summoned here and had to walk there on his feet.

　　Sylver had his Prisoner back in the day and knew exactly what he was supposed to do as his master, but apparently, Gregorio didn't know that yet.

　　What a pain in the ass.

　　On the other hand, Gregorio ran in the direction Marvin had left not long ago and came to a cabin in the woods.

　　The warm yellow light from the house is shadowed far out through the fog, and Gregorio slows his pace and approaches warily.

　　The house looked very much like a ranger's cabin, with pens for chickens and ducks and a ground nest for the ranger dog door, backed by a stream. He picked up a rock and slammed it against the door of the cabin, but for a long time, he didn't hear any barking or other sounds.

　　No one?

　　For the time being, we can't rule out the possibility that someone is hiding and wants to deliberately trap him.

　　The sudden appearance of such a room must be a key plot point, must go in and take a look.

　　Gregorio counted the contents of the package, both he and Marvin were only entering the box for the second time, and like all the newcomers, didn't have much equipment, only a dagger that wasn't too sharp anymore that they got when they passed the novice level.

　　[Name].

　　Dagger that's about to break (Upgradeable)

　　[Function].

　　Just like its name, it's about to break.

　　Maybe it can be used to peel an apple?

　　He went around to the window and looked in, nothing suspicious beyond the dead center of his vision.

　　Gregorio then stopped dawdling and just pushed the window and tumbled in, landing as close as he could without making a sound. He glanced at the doorway where he had just been in the blind spot, and there was a highly decomposed body leaning back against the door, the blood drying to black on the door panel and the floor.

　　If he had just pushed on the door, there was a high probability that he would have made a mess of the poor corpse.

　　The room didn't look like anything special, Gregorio looked around the room and finally came to crouch down next to the body, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the stench of decay, and began to examine it.

　　Judging by the clothes on the body, this was the owner of the hut, the local ranger, and there were very obvious finger mark bruises on the skin remaining on his neck, and his jaw was open, otherwise there were no other wounds, so he should have been strangled alive.

　　But ... where did the blood come from?

　　Was there anything else in the room?

　　Gregorio slowly got up and looked behind him, at the corner of the living room and the bedroom a shadow showed a tiny part of itself, seemed to notice it was being seen and quickly retracted.

　　He snapped his grip on the dagger in his hand.

　　"Who!"