A Sudden Sneak Attack

"H-how…?" He had a hard time speaking because of the immense pain he felt from being gutted once again.

He coughed out a large amount of blood as Shane pulled out the sword from his body while displaying an evil grin on his face. He looked so different now. He had a very sinister and evil aura surrounding him and his face was pale. He looked like a corpse that was left to rot for more than three days.

Lloyd activated his evil eye and stared straight into his soul. He could see three pitch-black orbs on it.

"So… you have succumbed to the corruption. A hybrid Rank II – elite. I thought… you were strong. What a fool you are!"

Lloyd cursed at him as he was dropped on one knee to the ground, sweating and panting. Blood trickled out of his mouth.

"Kill… I will… kill you… Lloyd!!!"

Shane was like a broken, talking puppet with hatred in his voice. He was having a maniacal grin in his face paired with his crazy obsession of killing Lloyd.

"Look at you… You accused me of not being human, but…" Lloyd struggled to stand up and gripped hard at his wraithslayer as glared back at Shane with full hatred. "You've become a hellspawn instead, you fricking bastard!"

Lloyd dashed forward and swung the wraithslayer while ghostblade was activated towards Shane. However, to his disappointment, he backed out and disappeared into the darkness which his evil eye couldn't even penetrate. It seemed that the darkness behind him was not an ordinary one. Lloyd could only hear his voice echoing in the cathedral.

"You… will regret… what you've done to me... I will come back… to hunt you down!"

Lloyd could feel the massive hatred from his voice which was followed by a mocking laughter as it slowly faded away until there was no more.

"So that's the power of a hybrid… Gah!!!" He vomited a large amount of blood once again and collapsed to the ground as he slowly lost his consciousness.

'Damn it.'

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Lloyd opened his eyes and saw that he was still in the halls of the cathedral. He lost consciousness after losing a large amount of blood from the wound he had received from Shane. Thankfully, he didn't come back to finish him off. He could see in Shane's eyes that he was somewhat afraid of getting hit by the wraithslayer even though he had no knowledge about the sword's attributes. Lloyd could only assume he had some kind of ability that warned him about the danger brought by the sword, so he could only retreat and let his victim live.

He looked at his wounds and saw that it had already healed. Having a reconstructed body from his second awakening proved to be helpful. Without its abnormal regenerative capabilities, Lloyd would be dead for the second time already.

"How many hours did I lose consciousness?"

He had no watch to check the time. He stood up and walked slowly towards outside only to see that it was still night time. He probably had been unconscious for a few hours only. Since the abominable Shane had no plans of coming back yet, he wanted to explore this cathedral. Lloyd had no plans of going back to the city without getting or discovering something meaningful.

He went to the second floor of the cathedral and into the living quarters of the priests and priestesses who once lived in this place. He found some notes regarding the history of Arcadia that lasted for thousands of years before the hellspawn disease claimed their world. There was also a diary left by the priestess.

As he skimmed through the important details in the diary, he discovered a torn page inserted somewhere between the pages in the middle section of the diary. He took it out and discovered that it was an ancient map of their world and there was also another map representing the city of Arcadia as well as its underground area where the defiled lived.

"I didn't expect that the underground area was only as small as the Arcadia headquarters. However, there were several points that are connected to a cavern that leads towards the surface…" He mumbled to himself.

He had developed a habit of talking to himself when no one was looking or present. It helped him calm his mind as well as develop his ideas further since he could remember it better if he said it out loud.

Once he was done checking everywhere and didn't find more clues or something useful, he used dimensional vault and stored the maps inside his soul. As he was about to leave the living quarter of the priestess, he heard several voices of humans who were panicking.

"Hurry up, Jouzo! It's catching up to us."

"I know! Gods! I swear these things would be the end of us, Romina."

The guy named Jouzo screamed at her as he tried to run as fast as he could. Lloyd could see on the window below a guy and two girls who were just about the same age as him running for their lives and it seemed that they were heading towards this cathedral. Lloyd's eyes narrowed upon seeing what was chasing them.

"Curses! What a bunch of idiots!" Lloyd brandished the wraithslayer and ran out of the room fast enough and towards the first floor into the great hall. He had to reach there quickly if he wanted to kill those abominations chasing them.

The three people were chased by two humanoid hellspawns with a head of a bull. They were carrying a big axe that looked quite heavy. However, they were swinging it with ease as if it was just a toy. If those things entered the cathedral and wreaked havoc inside, the cathedral would definitely collapse and Lloyd would be buried alive along with them. He couldn't let that happen.

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"What do we do now, Jouzo?"

Romina, who was panting heavily while catching up her breath, asked worriedly. They were now inside the cathedral to go into hiding. However, it was hard to ditch those bulls since they could smell them from afar even if they hide. 

"What else? We have to fight. I refuse to die in the hands of these bulls!" Jouzo gritted his teeth.

"It's your fault this had happened. If you and Risa didn't let that wretched goblin away, then we wouldn't be chased by two devils!"

"I'm sorry. We messed up, twinny." The girl called Risa cried.

Romina also was so close to letting her tears out. Unfortunately for her, she had no time to cry as the humanoid bulls arrived and destroyed the already dilapidated door with just one swing of their axes, sending the splinters flying towards them. One of those sharp splinters hit Romina in the leg and burrowed deeply in her left thigh which made her shriek in pain.

"Twinny!"

Risa hurriedly ran towards Romina and tried removing the splinter.

"No!"

Romina squirmed as much as she could, tears flowing in her eyes and the fear of facing two horrible monsters who wanted to feast on their flesh made her close to losing her mind.

The bulls' angry eyes showed great killing intent as the two rushed forward and was about to chop the three of them into pieces. They closed their eyes in despair, waiting for the axe to dissect their bodies into half. However, time passed by but nothing happened. They slowly opened their eyes only to see that the humanoid bulls stopped in their tracks. One of the bulls had a sudden seizure and fell to the floor, its eyes gradually losing its focus and turned milky. The bull had died, sending shocks to the onlookers.

"Wh-what had just happened?" Jouzo nervously asked.

"I don't know… It suddenly just died." Risa shook her head in response, unable to believe what she was seeing.

Upon seeing its companion die suddenly, the remaining bull let out a terrifying angry scream and turned around to see the culprit who had killed its kin. Jouzo and the others turned to look at where the bull was facing and saw a short statured teenage boy the same age as them, who was wearing a white coat with fine red lines on its shoulders. He was holding a jian sword in his left hand.

"Who is that guy?"

"Why you do you keep asking me? I don't know!" Risa retorted.

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Lloyd successfully sneaked an attack against one of the two humanoid bulls called minotaurs. The other one he had struck lay down on the cold floor lifelessly. He had greatly angered the other one, but it didn't matter to him. He was stronger compared to a mere cow. If that bastard Shane was a hybrid rank II elite but still couldn't kill him, then a mere elite cow stood no chance against hm.

"Come at me, stupid cow and I'll turn you into beef steak!"

Lloyd made a taunting gesture at it which made it even angrier. With its bulging muscles, it swung its axe in full force towards him. Lloyd's eyes widened in shock and quickly jumped high enough to evade the incoming axe. It passed through him and sent a very strong shockwave that reached the walls of the cathedral. The whole hall shook and the walls where the shockwave hit collapsed and the bricks turned into fine powder.

"Whoa! Scary. It's time to finish this."

As the cow was preparing for another mighty swing, Lloyd quickly moved and closed in the distance between him and the minotaur to a meter. He swung his wraithslayer, but this time, he didn't use the ghost blade. He wanted to see if he could take on the strength of this hellspawn.

Their weapons clashed several times without stopping. However, Lloyd's wraithslayer was sturdier than the minotaur's axe as the sword's blade gradually cracked the axe's bit and destroyed it.

Lloyd's sword continued pushing through and bit through the flesh of the cow, easily cutting through its muscles and bones and severed its arm completely. He then delivered another horizontal slash aimed at its throat. Blood gushed out from the heavy wound on its throat. No matter how the minotaur tried to cover its throat with its hands, the blood won't stop flowing. Eventually, it collapsed to the ground from the loss of blood and the flames of hatred in its eyes gradually disappeared until there was no more. The two minotaurs had died in Lloyd's hands.

He flicked the sword to wipe off the bloodstains clinging to the blade of his sword and turned to face the three survivors.

"Are you guys okay?"

Feeling speechless and not knowing what to say, the three nodded simultaneously and Lloyd sighed. He was finally feeling tired from this messy day.