Battle

Chapter 60: Battle

In the meantime, Luke appeared beside Daniel Baker and muttered in a gloomy tone.

"My identity is already exposed. Let's go and release the 'Chaos Wanderer' before the Crown escapes."

"Who said I would let you leave after ruining my whole lifelong plan?" A chilling old man's voice came out from the red-gem embedded bracelet, and soon it began to shine in bright red color.

A moment later, the wound on Jimmy's forehead healed at an unimaginable speed, and soon Jimmy stood up with a twisted smile on his face.

Noticing the strange situation, Luke and Daniel glanced at each other and soon sprinted into the dark woods.

Jimmy was about to chase after them, but Charles suddenly turned his face towards Jimmy's direction and ordered in a cold tone,

"Stop."

When Jimmy heard those words, he subconsciously stopped his footsteps and stood there with a disbelieving look on his face.

'Why am I responding to her order? No, something is wrong.' The Holem's Crown instantly sensed a change occurring in its inner world, so it concentrated its full attention on it.

In the depths of the Holem's Crown's mind, the previous contract mark began to change its shape and soon formed into a reddish star!

Within two seconds, three red stars appeared instead of two!

The first and second stars were the marks of the abyssal contract he signed with Holem and Nightwind family members. But the Holem's Crown felt that the third star was a completely different one!

'It's not an abyssal contract… But its power is on par with the other one… Hell's Sign? No, I haven't sensed any devil's presence in her. What the hell is this contract?!' For a moment, The Holem's Crown couldn't be able to think properly at all!

'No! No! How did this happen to me? When did I sign such a slave contract? Wait a sec… That Life contract I signed earlier… Did she trick me to sign a different one? But I didn't sense any anomaly at all. Why? Why? Why?!'

Holem's Crown instantly knew that it got tricked once again and became furious!

"Leave Jimmy's body and come here." Without minding Jimmy's glaring look, Charles took a step forward and spoke in a cold tone.

"NOOO!" An old man's painful screaming voice echoed from the red-gem embedded bracelet, and soon the bracelet moved from Jimmy's wrist. Simultaneously, Jimmy's body moved backward while twitching and soon fell on the ground with a thudding sound. A second later, the previous bullet wound also reappeared on his forehead area and dyed the black sand in scarlet color.

In the meantime, the red bracelet hovered in the air for a second and soon revealed its true form. The bracelet first expanded a little, and soon multiple red crystal-like gems appeared from the single red gem.

It was a tiara crown made of pure reddish gems and gold!

The crown hovered in mid-air for a whole three seconds and soon moved towards Charles.

Once it arrived in front of him, Charles picked the crown and placed it on his head.

"Good." Charles was pleased by the Crown's silent response and nodded his head.

"Now, I want to ask some questions." He said coldly and then started walking towards Emilia. Once he appeared beside Emilia, he licked his lips and then asked.

"Why are you in a hurry to go deep into the Unexplored Forest? Who is 'Chaos Wanderer'?"

Although he just asked simple questions, those words struck deep into the Holem's Crown's soul like divine words, making it reply in a hurry.

"I was in a hurry to complete a 'False Reincarnation Ritual' and become a true human."

"False Reincarnation Ritual?" Charles got startled deeply and then patiently waited for his second question's answer.

"As for your second question? No, I also don't know anything about this so-called 'Chaos Wanderer'." The Holem's Crown didn't dare to play any tricks without knowing the consequence and answered him truthfully.

"Why did you plan to do this False-Reincarnation Ritual at the Unexplored Forest instead of Riverdale City?" Charles suddenly felt curious about the ritual and asked further.

"Doing False-Reincarnation Ritual in the Riverdale City? That would be a suicidal task. False-Reincarnation Ritual is a taboo ritual and doing it openly will attract unwanted attention. Humph, I wouldn't be surprised if Goddess Nira sends one of her Incarnations to stop the ritual in the name of justice and Harmony. But this Unexplored Forest is the good place to do such ritual."

'Oh? Hmm, this strange ritual looks interesting.' Charles took a note about the ritual and then changed the topic.

"Do you know about the 'Watcher' class Mystic, Red-Prince? If so, tell me something about him. How did he found out more about you in the first place?"

"How do you know him-?" That instant, the Holem's Crown suddenly thought of a possibility and became completely stupefied!

"Charles?" It shouted in a shocked tone.

"Haha, it took you long enough." Charles suddenly changed his voice tone and muttered in a male voice, startling the still dumbfounded thieves.

Simultaneously, he removed his black wig, fake pads with sponges and then deactivated the 'Mark of Imagination.'

An instant later, everyone felt that Edith suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a male figure!

They couldn't comprehend what was happening in front of their eyes and became utterly flabbergasted!

For a whole minute, nobody, not even Night-Eye, moved his muscle. Even the perfect gentleman became stunned silly for an entire minute and soon sighed.

"I never noticed that there is such a pretty young man hiding in the slum street."

Upon hearing those ominous words, Charles felt chills all of a sudden.

Now, he understood why Emilia warned him earlier and smiled helplessly. He had seen such people in his past life, so Charles simply took out a comfortable cotton shirt from his space ring and wore it.

"DAMN IT! I Curse you, Charles! I curse your family! One day, I will break these shackles and make you a puppet for million years!" The Holem's Crown suddenly started cursing upon realizing that Charles was the one who enslaved it.

"Shut up! If you don't want to lock up in Life Church's Secret Chamber, stop your mumblings and obey my words from now on." Charles took off the crown from his head and then ordered,

"Change your form back to the bracelet. Wearing a crown feels a little uncomfortable for me."

Like a cute little pet, the Holem's Crown let out a grunt and obeyed.

In a second, it changed into a bracelet and lay on Charles's palm silently.

Charles nodded his head with a pleasing smile on his face and wore it in his left hand. After that, he turned his head towards Emilia and asked with a smile,

"What are your orders, Team Leader?"

Emilia also somewhat understood the situation as she heard their conversation and soon fell into deep thoughts.

After thinking for a moment, she took out a silver pocket watch from her void pouch, opened the outer case, adjusted the crown area, and then clicked it.

The next instant, her eyes turned pure white for a millisecond and soon returned to normal. Emilia quickly stored the pocket watch into her void pouch and said.

"There is no change in the current mission. We will follow after those two criminals and stop them before they release some monster or something. I also need to clean up the bad root of our ACES team."

"What about these guys?" Andrew suddenly raised his hand, pointed his finger at the thugs, and asked.

"We didn't hire them, so it's not our problem." Edith waved her hand and was about to walk into the deep forest but suddenly stopped. An instant later, she turned around, glared at Night-Eye, and then asked in a cold tone.

"What are you doing?"

To others, it looked more like Emilia was the one who was looking for trouble with Night-Eye.

But Charles knew that Night-Eye would have attacked her with full force if she had taken a step.

"I'm sorry, Lady Emilia. My employer specifically asked me to not let you walk further into this forest." Night-Eye removed his surcoat, threw it towards the still dumbfounded Richard, and said in a calm tone.

"Is that so?" Emilia turned her expression grave and glanced at Charles, who already removed most of his disguise.

"Do you think we can defeat him?" She asked. In truth, she had some methods to defeat Night-Eye, but that would reveal one of her trump cards to the outsiders.

A grim look appeared on Charles's face as he thought for a moment and soon shook his head.

"I can only use my other trump card to slow him down, Team Leader. As for defeating him, that will be an impossible task for us now." He said in a deep tone.

'I already used Incinerate and Ember's Pistol earlier. The only thing I have is the 'Starfall Codex' magic book, but I need time to cast those spells.' He muttered inwardly and then shifted his gaze towards Andrew.

Truthfully, he felt Andrew must have something up in his sleeve and became curious.

'Except for his over-thinking character, he is a normal guy in every way. But, Withering Shadow wouldn't take a normal guy unless he has something up in his sleeves.'

Noticing his gaze, Andrew let out a fake cough and sighed.

"Okay, Okay. If you guys made him immobile for two seconds, I can try out something-"

Before he could finish his words, Night-Eye moved from where he stood before leaving blurry images behind and soon disappeared from everyone's eyes.

In a second, he appeared behind Andrew like a shadow demon and swiftly moved his daggers towards his neck to decapitate him!

Sensing the upcoming threat, Andrew calmly bent his waist and muttered a word in Runal language.

"Protection."

A second later, two illusionary shields appeared from his sides and blocked those two silver daggers, leaving clanging sounds behind.

A grim look appeared on Night-Eye's face as he turned invisible in a second and withdrew his daggers before moving in a different direction.

"He is not an idiot." Charles curled his lips upward as he commented on Night-Eye and then took out the Starfall Codex from his space ring.

Simultaneously, Emilia tapped her grey-colored Queen's robe and cast the 'Ice Net' spell. An instant later, those icy webs spread to the surrounding areas and completely covered the ground like an actual spider net!

Casting the [Crimson Robe] spell on himself, Charles hurriedly flipped the pages and soon stopped at the fourth page.

After that, he took a deep breath and started chanting.

In the meantime, in his concealed form, Night-Eye scanned the three people and ordered his subordinates.

"You guys go and run in all directions."

Although he was surprised by the web-like net, he knew that Emilia wouldn't have the power to concentrate her attention on every web, so he sent out those orders.

In less than three seconds, those thieves entered the web under their boss's order and started to jog like dumb idiots. Even Richard and Nicole followed Night-Eye's words and entered the domain of the ice net.

"This is just a plain and effective way to counter my spell." Emilia wore a dumbfounded look and then muttered with a surprised tone.

But she shook her head and added.

"Charles, it's up to you now."

After saying those words, she controlled the 'Ice Net' spell and activated the hidden effect.

An instant later, those who stepped on the web lines started to feel their legs numb and soon froze.

No, the ice threads released dense ice-elemental energy and froze their bodies within few seconds. During the time, Night-Eye also tried different methods to get closer to Charles and Andrew. Still, to his astonishment, Emilia maintained her calm expression and protected them using those icy threads.

Two seconds later, Charles curled his lips upward as he ended the short chant, locked his gaze on a particular area, and then smiled.

Seeing Charles's strange smile, Night-Eye's body suddenly stiffened up!

He suddenly forgot how to maintain his concealed form and soon revealed his body to others!

It was the effect of the Rank-1 Fire spell, Burning Thoughts!

Usually, Rank-1 spells didn't have the power to affect a Rank-3 Mystics.

But there were exceptions.

For example, Rank-3 Rogue was weak against mind-related abilities because Rogues would primarily focus on improving their Dexterity and Strength!

For them, improving wisdom was a waste of time.

Meanwhile, Charles put most of his attribute points to the Wisdom attribute and already raised it to an extraordinary level! His wisdom power was already 20, which was above average when comparing to other Rank-2 mages!

Even a Rank-3 Rogue would feel helpless in that situation and would be affected for a short period.

Without wasting such good opportunity, Emilia suddenly teleported in front of Night-Eye and cast her [Gaze of Medusa] skill on him.

She didn't end it there, though. She then touched Night-Eye's chest and cast [Touch of Idiocy], [Mind Fog], and [Hypnosis] skills simultaneously and then took a step back.

Although she had low wisdom power, she used an artifact called [Sage's Tear] when casting those skills and upgraded the skills' effects before casting!

Night-Eye's mind went completely blank. He couldn't move a muscle, nor couldn't he think something.

No, he felt that thinking was a terrible choice and accepting the reality was a must!

At this time, the baldy Andrew suddenly teleported in front of him and raised his right hand towards his chest.

He then tried to clench his hand, but something invisible obstructed his fingers from closing together!

Groaning, Andrew clenched his jaws for a second and finally squashed the invisible thing from his palm.

The next instant, blood started to come out from Night-Eye's mouth, and soon he woke up.

But instead of calmness, anxiety and fear took over Night-Eye's face as he placed his hand on his chest and staggered back and forth.

"He became a heartless now," Emilia muttered in pity.