The Ghost (3/3), Cloudford's True Backing (1/2)

After leaving the town, Arlott unhurriedly swept his hand over his face as his mana consumed, causing a plain white crystal mask to hide his face. His outfit also changed as he altered its design with micro red crystal and blue crystals.

Crystal Element could be influenced by other elements as he used flame and water to give it those attributes for coloring purposes.

Naturally, he changed his appearance after going into a few allays in the town before finally leaving, but not from the gates. Instead, he left from the east of the town's border by jumping off the town defense wall.

After leaving the town, he didn't go to the bridge to cross the river. Instead, he swiftly moved a few hundred meters by the riverbank and arrived at an unpopulated place before crossing it by flying using wind around him with some mana.

The guild was near here rather than after crossing the bridge, so he arrived before the Cloudford guild's gates in a few seconds.

The guild buildings were situated on a wide hill, and the castle was at the center of it, which was the central base of the guild and Arlott's target.

"Who are you?" one of the guards asked. 

[I'll mark the black souls that you can devour.]

'Alright.'

[Spare the guards.]

Arlott walked forward, and before the guards could do anything, both of them fainted and fell down.

*BOOM!*

Arlott kicked the gate open as they flung inside and attracted many guild members' attention.

It was clear to them that this was a hostile individual, so a few of them quickly called the top brass of the guild.

The others became wary. 

"Hey, who are you?! Messing with Cloudford guild won't end well for you, mate!"

A muscular brown-haired guy looking in his late twenties shouted towards Arlott. 

A heavy sword appeared in his hand, and he pointed it at Arlott.

[Not many black souls here. I've marked sixteen, including this buffy guy.]

'Alright.'

  Arlott swept his glance at fifty people within a hundred-meter area and saw the black mark on sixteen people that Laverna put for him to perceive.

The people here were not much stronger, as the strongest was the brown-haired muscular guy—a 3rd-class mage, which was why other people didn't step forward.

They didn't want to become collateral damage as they could feel that this stranger with a mask was dangerous. After all, the guards on duty today were 2nd class mages, but they fell strangely.

"Say something, or I'll attack!" 

Arlott glanced at the guy and snapped his finger.

A burst of soul force unleashed as he consumed some Soul Essence, causing everyone except for the marked sixteen people to faint as they fell on the ground.

The sixteen people included seven women and nine men—the ones going to die with their souls getting sucked and refined by Arlott.

"W-What did you do?!" 

"Hurry, call the guild master and vice leaders!"

The remaining sixteen sweated profusely at the absurdness of the situation.

A few powerful already were already coming, and before they could reach, Arlott stretched his palm forward as his finger released ghostly white strings.

Soul Fishing. 

Consuming 16,000 Soul Essence, Arlott forcefully pulled out all sixteen people's souls from their bodies.

*Thud…Thud…Thud…*

All sixteen fell. Dead.

Inside Arlott's soul sea, all sixteen souls were put into his Soul Vortex as they were being purified by the powerful vortex to extract pure soul essence from them. Once done, their husk would vanish into the life cycle of the Grand Primal Cosmos for the spirituality of newborn lives.

'How much Pure Soul Essence do we need to kickstart Iris and Luna's progress in Soul Art?'

[Not much. Just seventeen souls more.]

Pure Soul Essence could increase one's Soul Force, and Arlott was gathering it for Iris and Luna by refining other people's souls in his Soul Vortex and extracting soul essence.

Naturally, he could do this because of a Soul Art he was practicing. Not everyone could take people's souls like fishing and refine pure soul essence from them. It was all thanks to Laverna as she taught her own Soul Art to Arlott after downgrading it a bit for newbies in Soul Path.

'They are here.'

[All of them are black souls, haha. Take them.]

Arlott saw seven people flying towards him with a powerful arcane aura—three 5th-class mages and four 4th-class mages, four women and three men looking their thirties.

"What did you do?!"

"Kill him! It doesn't matter who he is after doing this!"

Two of them quickly checked the pulse of their direct subordinates and found that they were not breathing.

"Fuck, they are dead!"

[Wait, keep that long, dark pink-haired woman alive. That bitch…Jeez. She needs to die slowly and painfully.]

Laverna could read everyone's memories in a jiffy, which was why she could mark people for Arlott to kill.

Seeing a powerful red fireball and a lightning arrow shooting at him, Arlott dodged one and couldn't dodge another as his arm was cut off.

But it rapidly regenerated as he consumed some Vitalis. 

'Nice.'

[Come on, don't take unnecessary damage. Just weaken their souls with your pressure to reduce their combat power.]

Arlott chuckled.

'I just wanted to see how fast I could regenerate, haha.'

On the other hand, the seven of them were dumbfounded seeing Arlott's arm rapidly regenerating. Then, they saw him pointing his palm at them, and their world turned dark in the next second.

Six of them died, but the dark pink-haired woman wearing a purple witch-like outfit enchanted with magic was alive. 

Arlott walked before her as she looked at him with eyes full of horror.

"W-what did you? Why can't I move?!"

Arlott made a chopping motion towards her as a basic Spiritual Blade condensed from 1000 Soul Essence shot towards her and cut off her soul in half.

"Arghhhhhhhh!!"

The woman screamed in nightmarish pain while her body constantly twitched.

But after a few seconds, her eyes rolled backward, and she lost consciousness. Not dead, but worse than dead.

'So, what did you find from her head?'

[Appearerntly, she is the head of the Research Department of this guild. Her research is mainly on creating Geno Art and Geno Skills by experimenting on developing kids and young ones who have reached their adult growth.]

Arlott's lips curled into disgust as he stepped on her face and almost wanted to squash it.

"Let's keep her alive for our experiment department. We'll also need some specimen after all," Arlott said as he took back his foot.

[Good idea. Also, if you want to stop this reckless experiment of these assholes on innocent kids, then you have to build something big.]

'I know what you mean. We'll take that step on it when I have a proper workforce under me,' Arlott nodded as he waved his hand and put the woman's body in a special storage ring that Laverna bought from Exotic Trade Shop four months ago.

This storage ring had a space of 1000 cubic meters, and it could keep living beings inside as long as they were not capable of resisting the stay with their thoughts.

[Workforce…We indeed need it and need it fast for many things.]

'To find people here to work for me would take time,' Arlott helplessly smiled. 'It will also take a few years to train those ten kids.'

[I may have an idea regarding that. Let's finish things here first. I'll fill you in on that idea later.]

Arlott had already arrived at the castle by now, and killed ten people inside by sucking their souls. 

But after that, he suddenly sensed three powerful aura rapidly approaching the location.

"It seems that Guild master is finally here."

Arlott was in the castle's hall, and there was also a throne here, indicating that the Guild master here had quite a taste and vanity to appease.

Arlott didn't turn around and walked towards the throne before sitting on it and saw three people entering the castle, their expressions grim.

The Guild Master looked in his thirties with short light brown hair, but his real age was more. Bearing 64,388 Arcane Force, he was a 7th-class Mage.

"Leader, that bastard…he only has twenty-six thousand Arcane Force! He couldn't have fucking done this!"

The man beside him spoke—He was a 6th-class mage, having 54,780 Arcane Force.

"Who are you?! Remove your mask!" the beautiful woman with wavy dark red hair shouted. She had a bombastic figure and was also a 7th-class mage, having 61,370 Arcane Force.