Jinhyung immediately moved toward the cries for help.

I grabbed him by the shoulder, "Wait, what if it is a trap? We could get injured."

We ignored the identity or the whereabouts of any high rankers. With the exception of the Great Magic Alliance that we witnessed in this car’s Gate room.

Wait, how did we met them? Those memories were quite blurry, as I was, let's say, in a less than optimal state. But I could clearly remember them waiting for something as we exited. On the go, I assumed they waited to enter the level as we were occupying the gate.

But now that I think about it, they have already completed the second challenge before us. This meant they waited for a specific someone... and they were all geared up. Did they expect the 'King'? Impossible, they were far too weak. Then why?

"The King has enough power to not waste time on such foolishness, and I am confident I wouldn't back down before any other adventurer,” strongly declared Jinhyung.

His self-confidence burned my hand away like a magic aura. It was quite impressive to see how much he believed in himself.

"Alright then"

The remaining people fled the market, only a few remained. We quickly located the origin of the magic voice, it seemed to originate from

About a half-dozen people gathered around the bloodied body of a young blond boy dressed in a tailored suit. Pierre?

"That's the brat that I kicked into the wall yesterday," Jinhyung said quietly, so as not to raise any suspicions.

Wait, wasn't that kid their leader? Why did I only recognize one of Pierre's subordinates?

"Who screamed?" I asked calmly.

I felt pressure under everyone’s stare, especially from a certain woman. She was slightly smaller than me and dressed in a rather sizable fur winter coat. Her waist length black hair were crowed of a grey 'Russian hat'.

Her green gaze studied me thoroughly. I unleashed a bit of my 'presence' and her pressure subsided. Was she testing me?

She stepped over the body and walked right in front of me brushing past Jinhyung. An yet unseen fury ignited in his pupils, I heard the steel of his blade screeching against the scabbard.

I raised my hand as a signal to him, to not create a mess. He let go of the sword, but still unleashing an angry presence dancing as flames around him.

"Greetings, sorcerer of the West, I am Irina. Glad to meet you. However, I wasn't the one to call for help."

'Sorcerer of the West'? Irina was a Slavic name and I looked European, which was indeed Western to Slavic countries. However, It was still such a weird thing to hear.

“Friedrich, so what brings you here?"

She slightly tilted her head and smiled.

"German huh?”

“Does it matter? So what do you want?”

“Oh, I just felt I could cleanse my boredom here. You know, waiting for your group members to finish their personal training is sooo long... Oh, and who are those muscles?" She said pointing at Jinhyung.

His teeth grinded ferociously. Did he hate anyone that talked to me?

"Oh, he is my companion."

"You are the 'Companions to the End' then, huh? Not bad for a small team." She giggled and winked at me.

Such a deduction was trivial, but she nonetheless realized it swiftly.

"There is a murder. What are you freaks doing?" A trembling male voice broke through our little talk.

Irina stepped aside and seemed pretty disinterested in the whole murder affair. I was clearly the culprit for her interest. Why?

Pierre's skin was pale, and a chipped blade pierced his heart. It was familiar, but I couldn't exactly recall it. Maybe I saw it one day at the market.

Through the veil of my eyelids, and I noticed something rather peculiar... Some energy was left inside the blade. An energy I knew.

The same guy opened his mouth anew.

"Wait, doesn't he have a similar energy to the blade’s?" He trembled, visibly accusing Jinhyung wasn't that easy.

Jinhyung's eyes rounded as he examined the sword.

"Unbelievable… This is really the sword that I lost some time ago!" Such surprise made him forget about Irina.

Some more people gathered—more of Pierre's group. A static murmur arose between them, I could clearly understand what they were talking about, or rather ‘who’.

"He was the one who beat him up a day ago; it is clearly him,” the gathered people chanted in unison.

“YES AND?”

“You even recognized the murder weapon as your weapon! Murderer!”

As I expected, they were all prepared for this. I had a weird feeling about this from the very beginning.

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Suddenly, everyone but me and Irina staggered backward, fixing Jinhyung. My muscles tensed as an ominous aura emanated from his body.

His clothes were blown up as if he stood within a storm. His 'presence' was filled with tremendous killing intent.

[Idiots, somebody set this up. And this moron will have a taste of my wrath!]

Rather impressive for a first time. With each of his words, people's hearts skipped a beat and light flickered.

I quickly raised my 'presence' to a similar degree as Jinhyung. Only about a third of present people withstood our combined pressure. Those who couldn't, fell on the ground and troubled even breathing.

Irina was clearly enjoying such a sight; was she the one behind everything? No, clearly, she was stronger than such cheap tricks.

[Listen everyone, this body is clearly fresh, and the remains of power in this sword are old and faint, this is a ridiculously bad lie. Jinhyung, show them your power so they understand.]

I was quite surprised at how much stronger our 'presence' was than those from the second-ranked group; after all, there were twenty-five of them. Even with average power, their numbers allowed them to clear the challenge better than us.

Also, they received lesser splits of coins, inhibiting their growth even more. Nonetheless, Irina's spirit was relative to mine, she definitely wasn't with them.

Jinhyung lifted his blade above his head and tremendous magic power gathered within. Soon after, an infernal grasp of pure white blaze surrounded everyone present. It lasted no more than a split second, dispelling the techniques before anybody got hurt.

Everyone gasped in awe but Irina, she looked as if he wanted this to end quickly.

I knew that such a display of strength was really demanding, so I shared a bit of energy with him. It would be terrible for us if he fainted from exhaustion right now.

I stepped forward and collapsed all of my pressure onto the dead body. Its bones cracked and skin tore apart.

Smoke and sparks started to appear from the deceased body. Slowly, the face and the general appearance started to melt. Soon enough, as its spell became undone, the corpse completely vanished into the ambient magic.

"See, nothing more than a decoy!" I continued now with my normal voice. I couldn't hold such an intense presence for much longer anyway.

"Bring me Pierre; he will regret going against me again," added Jinhyung.

Pierre had two possible locations right now: hiding close to us in order to observe, or in the safety of his cabin. He probably already fled the scene when we discovered the trick, mindlessly running around would be pointless.

The scared goons of the Alliance quickly fled the area. I heard them curse us while jumping into the elevators.

The ones that remained were greatly relieved with how things sorted out. They complimented my wits and Jinhyung’s strength. Some even asked to join our party but I turned everyone down under Jinhyung’s strict stare.

I was quite relieved that they didn't make up anything more convincing than that. People continued with their lives and slowly everyone went their way.

Irina stood with her back against a wall, smiling and waving her hand at me. She visibly was happy I was free.

Jinhyung warned me,"I sense a very ominous ‘intent’ emanating from her, be ready to fight.”

“Let me breathe, wait for me at the cafeteria. I’ll join you in no time, I fear you'll escalate things so please can I deal with her alone?”

He grimaced in disagreement.

“Be quick, don’t make me worried.”

With those words, his wide back faced me and slowly walked away. It was different from when he met Lillian; his hate now was unquestionable.

"You knew."

"Of course," she joyfully replied.

"It was obvious after all; what do you really want? Witch Irina."

I already deduced her group; that wasn't hard at all. Her hands were clearly unfamiliar with the blade, and after taking a look into her spirit, her power was clearly not as overwhelming as the 'King's' should be. She could only be from the Coven.

Her magic pool was slightly smaller and her paths were a bit weaker than mine. After all, not everybody was crazy or desperate enough to absorb the core of the chimera king.

As I looked deeper, I found something strange, something I couldn’t understand within her soul.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention it, haha."

"To the point, please." Her overly sweet behaviour felt so fake I wanted to puke.

"We are looking for competent people to go against the 'King'."

To be fair, I doubted that even if all adventures teamed up, we would lose.

"What do I gain?"

“Freedom from the tyrant.”

“Tyrant? I don’t feel in shackles?”

Even if ‘King’ was sure terrifying, he didn’t do anything evil just yet.

“Such an immense growth is dangerous, very soon he would become impossible to defeat.”

“Are you sure we can even defeat him right now?”

Her smile and kind attitude vanished leaving place to an horrendous grimace.

"Do you doubt us?"

I didn't feel anything, as my blood started to dip on the ground. I looked down at my body, I was covered in several wounds from small ice spears that flew straight through me.

I spat a mouthful of blood and stumbled backward.

"I am not even the strongest of us, HahaHa!" Her smile almost split her face in half. Hundreds of ice bullets rained upon me.

She avoided my vitals, killing me right now would break the rules. I deduced her plan, once I fell unconscious here, she could drag me into the Adventure Train and be freed from any restrictions.

“Come on, German boy, last chance to accept.”

[ENOUGH!]

Out of nowhere, a carmine fog filled the area between us pushing her back.

Shortly after, the mist started to fill my wounds, slowly healing them.

[Hey bitch, I need this guy to myself; get your stinking paws away. You're lucky his boyfriend left to eat, because he would have slaughtered you right away.]

Lillian flew out of my pocket quickly circling around me. She saved me, but urghh… She still was shippong me with Jinhyung?

"Oh, how amusing. You truly are an interesting one, haha."She said gathering a large power within her palms.

Before she could do anything, black chains appeared and crushed her against the ground.

[Shut up, Bitch!]

Irina screamed as chains dug deeper into her skin. Suddenly, a strong magic wave pushed me and Lillian back, the lightning flickered and a sparkly light blue smoke filled the place.

Once it dissipated, Irina was gone.

[Fuck, she got away.]

"It's ok, we are safe at least. Although it is a problem that she now knows about you."

'The Coven' gained information about a powerful, sentient magic artifact in our possessions. However, I doubted they would realize she was the Lord of the Castle of Nightmares.

[Yeah sorry, but you would have died if I didn't intervene.]

"How did you wake up by the way?"

[When you and Jinhyung decided to bully those weaklings, a lot of energy was released... I ate some of it.]

I felt pretty shameful; I underestimated Irina. I should've known that after using so much of my power, I couldn't be so careless with stranger adventurers, especially strong ones.

"Hey Lillian, I am thankful, but you will need to go to sleep again, I fear... For a little bit, I will just go get some food."

[Alright, *yawn*, I am pretty tired after fixing you anyway.]

I now experienced one of the passive of my attire, the coat started to slowly rebuild itself using the ambient magic. Those clothes really were the best thing about this train.