1178 Old Debts, New Enemies



"I can smell her arrogance even from across the screen and thirty full floors," A man in white robes muttered in a hoarse voice. "She's just like her master, Miss Calamity. The arrogance, the pride…to send this lass in after killing my brother, I've to applaud the guts of that woman! It must be fate telling me to settle the accounts."

If Varian could read the life signals of the man in white robes, he could easily find the connection between him and the 'spy' who messed up the Centaurus Duchy.

Slaughter Shade—the infamous spy who infiltrated a Kingdom under Genesis Empire and burned it to ground by all descipable means. It was too sudden for the Empire to react.

The succession of the kingdom was destroyed when Slaughter Shade returned from Mors Empire, 'resurrected' the corpse of previous King and threw the royal family into a mess.

It was said that Slaughter Shade tortured the injured members of royal family so brutally that despite knowing it's a trap, the remaining royal members chased after him.

The Jai Empire's infamous vanguard groups exploited the situation and struck like lightning. When the royal family couldn't respond in time, things went for a toss.

The Divine Rankers were only able to intervene a day later but the damage was already done.

A brilliant kingdom was left in tatters.

The Mythril Quadrilateral—the group of four kingdoms that served as the first line of defense against the Jai Empire was reduced to the Diamond Triangle.

Since then, Slaughter Shade had been on a run. He was nearly killed quite a few times and paid a hefty price to stay alive which included his rank falling from peak of rank 7 to peak of rank 6 and of course, signing up for another life-threatening mission.

Even such a man who caused the death of trillions ended up shedding tears over the death of his one and only relative—Crimson Shade—the spy who was supposed to 'retrieve' something important in Centaurus but ended up getting killed by 'Prince Baldur' with the assistance of Miss Calamity.

He didn't know much about the Prince but he shared some fate with Miss Calamity. The reason he dropped in rank was that this woman's clone just ripped apart some of 'him' and made him incomplete.

For both himself and his brother, he wanted to get back on her. "I should kill her disciple even if I have to pay a heavy price."

The man next to him, brown-haired, ripped, dressed in a golden coat over a red shirt and jeans, casually patted his shoulder and said. "After we're done with the mission, yes."

"…I could die in the mission. That's the most likely event. There's little hope of revenge." Slaughter Shade shook his head.

"This is the Seventh Prince's command." The brown-haired man said, even mentioning the Prince caused his eyes to shake with uncontrollable fear.

The man himself was a menace to the Alliance and slaughtered countless powerhouses.

No one knew if he was a man, a woman, a child, or an elder. Some even thought he wasn't even a humanoid, but a beast.

Whatever he was, even Slaughter Shade never saw Hollow's body. The body he was inhabiting now belonged to a famous adventurer who was said to be a genius who had the potential to reach rank 8.

Hollow killed him, inhabited his body, and fooled everyone else in the tower. A few years later, the body's adventure group was mostly destroyed during a mission and disbanded shortly after.

With this safe identity, Hollow was just a few steps away from fulfilling the mission.

"I should've never met you in the first place. If you do something stupid, the blame will fall on me," Hollow said to the man in front of him with undisguised contempt.

Even if it's Slaughter Shade, Hollow wasn't willing to meet him in person. One was akin to a special agent while the other was a super spy.

Slaughter Shade and all such spies were under the command of Princess Eshala Starlight, serving the Warring Faction.

While Hollow and the special agents like him were under the command of the Seventh Prince, serving the Naraka Faction.

"I only joined you because of the order," Slaughter Shade had his own pride.

Both as an individual and as a member of the Warring Faction, he hated losing—especially to a guy from another faction.

He could bear it until now since it was the high command's order. But not too long after learning about his brother's death, he received a message that Princess Eshala issued an unlimited hunt for a man.

If the location of the man gets leaked, as the highest agent under her command, he might be the one forced to hunt him down.

Slaughter Shade wanted the traces of the man to be found as soon as possible. That way, he could get out of the tower, hunt the man and then request a reward.

He didn't want to kill Maria. Not completely. He wanted to trap her in a time loop and torture her for eternity. It'd be his revenge for the death of his only brother.

As he was hoping and desperately playing, a device inside him rang and sent the message he'd be waiting for. But the content was surprising.

"Huh? The target entered the tower? And his aura samples…"

Slaughter Shade's expression grew solemn and he immediately contacted his underlings to conduct a sweeping search of the newcomers and paid the intelligence groups for investigation.

The shortlist reached him in three hours. There were only a hundred suspicious people.

One of them was a man with a disgustingly familiar name.

Baldur.

Unexpectedly, he's also the guy with the apprentice of Miss Calamity.

"If this isn't fate, then what else?" Slaughter Shade crumbled the paper and gnashed his teeth. "Send rank 4s to hunt the rest. For the bastard named Baldur and the woman with him, send three rank 6s."

"Don't," Hollow stopped him before the order was passed. "Moving so many powerhouses would alert the tower, you fucking donkey! If the tower administrator gets alert, we're dead and the mission is toast!"

"Then what? Send rank 4s to hunt them to warm them up, then rank 5s to warn them, and finally rank 6s when they're fully prepared? That's dumber, you possessing ghost freak!" Slaughter Shade growled.

"…All of them are newcomers. The one suspected by the Fourth Princess can definitely cross the floors and clear the first zone. You just have to lay the trap on the 28th or 29th or even the 30th floor. That wouldn't look so suspicious. Instead, people will think the teams are just sadistic enough to kill the ones who're about to clear the zone."

Such practices weren't uncommon in the tower.

Even though he was reluctant, Slaughter Shade agreed to the suggestion and send down a hunting team to the 29th floor.

"Ugh, fuck. I'll just—"

"And don't use mercenaries. There's no reliability. If they pay higher, they'll just side with them." Hollow said without any doubt.

Because the body he inhabited had done such things many times before it became famous.

Slaughter Shade paused for a moment and glared at Hollow. He's fine not using random assassins and special teams, but not using mercenaries—the ones he's already acquainted with—was something that pissed him off. 

"What if I want to?" Slaughter Shade growled. 

The air grew tense and a thick killing intent leaked out of Hollow, pushing against Slaughter Shade. "We're on the verge of finishing this mission. If you try doing anything that'll risk exposing us, then you'll die before you can do it." 

"Oh, try me." Slaughter Shade grinned and his own killing intent swept out, repelling Hollow's. 

The confrontation lasted for a while until Slaughter Shade turned away with a reluctant expression.  "I have to finish both missions. The mercenaries have leaked the news for a higher price many times in the past and double crossed the employers. This is a risk I can't take."

Since the tower was filled with endless fighting, there was no concept of loyalty. Anyone could do anything for the right price. Even a peak rank 6 couldn't direct what these shady gangs could do.

There were just too many of these powerhouses entering, fighting, and dying in the tower every year that everyone stopped deferring to them.

Slaughter Shade sighed in frustration but decided to use only his loyal slaves for the job.

Fifty Rank 4s.

Ten Rank 5s.

One Low Rank 6.

Heeding his instruction, all of them waited on the 29th floor.