Entering the Core Circle

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Romulus had a hundred of his Soldier-rank Shadows act as corpse gatherers. They were required to have strength-boosting skills, with which they would use to lift up the thousands of monster corpses scattered across the Inner and Outer Circle of Ghost Town. They would bring all the corpses and their magic cores to the Legion Master, him. He would quickly absorb them and send the same shadows out to gather more corpses. This process was perpetual and was happening even while he sat back and watched his three most powerful shadows get pummeled to a pulp repeatedly.

The system notifications were plentiful, and as the Shadow Generals reached the zenith of their battles, Romulus glanced at a few of them.

BLING!

[Ding! |Shadow Soldier #45| was fatally injured and received 0.03 BP!]

[Ding! You received 0.01 BP!]

[Ding! |Shadow Soldier #328| was fatally injured and received 0.12 BP!]

[Ding! You received 0.06 BP!]

[Ding! You…]

[Ding! You devoured an F-Rank Dark-Element Magic Core!]

[Your Affinity with the Dark Element slightly improved!]

[Ding! You devoured an E-Rank Dark-Element Magic Core!]

[Your Affinity with the Dark Element slightly improved!]

[Ding! You…]

The system notifications rang out continuously. It eventually reached a point where Romulus had to turn them off so as to put his full attention on the evolutions of his three generals. Which, just as expected, happened as soon as the A-Rank monsters died.

Three giant spider heads sailed through the sky before crashing through a couple buildings, destroying them in the process. Standing a few meters away from these corpses, the Shadow Generals felt something magical happen within their bodies.

[Ding! |Uno|, |Dos|, and |Wolfy| killed three A-Rank Spider Fiends!]

[Ding! They all received 220,000 EXP!]

[Ding! They leveled up!]

[Ding! They leveled up!]

[Ding! They ranked up into the A-Rank! Evolution process will now commence!]

BING! BING! BING!

Several bright pearlescent lights flashed around the Shadow Generals as they were encased in evolutionary cocoons. After two seconds of constant shimmering, the cocoons cracked and broke open, and then the new versions of the Generals emerged from within them.

"Cakata!" Dos exclaimed as he felt a ridiculous level of power coursing through his veins. His body may have slimmed down a little, but that in no way meant he had gotten weaker.

"..." Uno, on the other hand, was as silent as ever. He had become a bit bulkier and his appearance more daunting, but overall, he still retained his thin assassination build. Moreover, the two shadowy daggers he used to carry around by his sides had become far larger and sharper, so he had to hang them on his back.

Lastly, but not least, was Wolfy…

"Woof! Woof!" Acting more like a dog than a ten-meter-long wolf, he jumped at his master while wagging his tail excitedly. Exasperated, Romulus just let it happen, with his small two-meter frame easily getting lost in all the darkened floof.

After a couple seconds, he said, "That's enough, Wolfy." then effortlessly lifted the giant wolf up with a single hand before setting him off to the side. Puzzled, Wolfy tilted his head and stuck out a tongue dumbly while looking at his butt.

Ignoring the silly monstrous beast, Romulus hovered a few meters off the ground and looked at his three renewed generals as his long-sleeved black leather jacket fluttering behind him. "You all have done well in evolving into A-Rank organisms, but this is far from the end goal for us," he said loudly. "From now on, I will return to the deepest depths of the Center Circle, and you bunch will make sure to gather up the monster corpses and set guards around them so they don't get eaten by others."

While watching the expressions of the Three Generals morph into sadness, Romulus smirked cunningly. "If you wish to join up with me once more, then you must keep on killing and become stronger," he said. "Only then will you be able to find me and once again serve by my side."

"I do hope that you don't disappoint," were the last things to leave his mouth before his figure crackled into the wind.

"Cakata!!"

"Woof!!"

"..."

The Shadow Generals were filled with a new sense of drive and determination, pushing them forward on the path of evolution. Right away, they marched toward the nearest A-Rank Monsters, with the entire Shadow Legion trailing right behind them!

HOOORAAHH!!

—------------

While the Shadow Generals and Shadow Legion mowed through Ghost Town, Romulus had already returned to the densest layers of fog in the deepest part of the Center Circle. As he had already achieved the peak of the A-Rank in terms of Battle Power, with his power increasing passively by the second, there was truly only one way for him to feel the thrill of battle once more and experience a truly tough challenge.

"The S-Rank Monsters in Ghost Town's Core area," Romulus said calmly. "With the S-Rank Minimap Skill, I was able to figure out that there was another segment of the extremely massive Ghost Town. This segment being somewhere with just a few dozen red dots."

When the Minimap Skill reached Lvl 5, another unique function was activated. It made it where the map had more than just the locations of enemies and buildings in close proximity. Specifically, the new feature indicated the approximate magic mass of anything in a large area. In other words, Romulus was able to see the strength of every single S-Rank monster in the Core area. Moreover, he spotted the existence of an extremely large red dot toward the farthest ends of Ghost Town, with three smaller dots standing watch close by. One didn't need to be a genius to infer who the largest red dot was.

"The Immortal Witch," Romulus murmured softly, his tone containing a hint of anticipation.

He really wanted to understand what Ghost Town and the myth behind it had to offer. So, without further ado, he passed through an extremely thick wall of fog and entered the place known as the Graveyard of Bones by those unfortunate enough to get stuck in this accursed place. His path from here onwards would be one filled with the unknown, but this new life was given to him for a reason, and he planned to figure out exactly what that reason was, no matter what price had to be paid.

Romulus's system interface before entering the Core Circle of the Forbidden Zone dubbed Ghost Town:

—-------------

[Name: Romulus] — [Level: 93]

[Job: None]

[Title: None]

[MP: 704,000/725,000]

[BP: 935]

|Strength: 740 (3700) | Defense: 710 (7100)|

|Intelligence: 725 (3625) | Agility: 805 (4025)|

{[Skills: [EX-Rank Truck-kun's Retribution], [S-Rank Magical Eye (Lvl 6)], [S-Rank Minimap (Lvl 6)], [S-Rank Elemental Dominator (Lvl 6)], [S-Rank Elemental Dominator Transformation (Lvl 6)], [S-Rank Devour (Lvl 6)]

[S-Rank Discerning Eye (Lvl 5)], (S-Rank Great Sage (Lvl 5)], [S-Rank Rudimentary Ascendant Glow Aura (Lvl 4)], [S-Rank Ultimate Elemental Condenser (Lvl 4)], [S-Rank Transcendent Regeneration (Lvl 4)], [S-Rank Death Scythe Manifestation (Lvl 4).....]]}

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