Chapter 2 Great Rewards
Approaching the rundown colossal archway, Victor cautiously entered the ruins. Looking around the archway, he found several carvings on the walls, most were animals like tigers, eagles and many more.
As he arrived within the ruins, a ruins of houses stretched far before him and at the very far center was a huge castle with half of it already turned into rubbles.
Victor could imagine how prosperous this ruins once before and it puzzled him how such huge city with thick and several hundred meters high wall fell and turned into history.
He frowned at the eerie silence. "Why is there no sound? It's too quiet. Not like before... Something might have happened while I'm away."
Mounting three arrows on his Cirulas Long Bow, he proceeded towards the huge castle, ready to anything that might jump out. If the enemy was beyond his capabilities, then he would escaped without a second thought. After all, his life was more important than his curiosity.
Sensing a movement around, Victor caught a glimpse of a moving shadow at the corner of his eyes. Pointing his arrows at the rubble that was once a thick column, he jumped back and hid behind a thick rock as he waited for it to reveal itself.
His eyes narrowed, never blink. The atmosphere grew tense, the grip of his hands on the Cirulas Long Bow and fletch of the arrow tightened.
Suddenly, something jumped out of the rubble. It was fluffy and have a long soft ears. A black rabbit. At the sight of it, Victor revealed himself and sighed in relief. "I'm too cautious, but it's better this way..."
He turned around proceed walking towards the huge castle. Then, he heard some kind of sound behind him. When his looked back, the cute black rabbit was growing in size as its body bulged.
His mind warned him to leave and thus he ran as fast as he could before it complete the transformation. Cursing in his mind. 'Fuck! I should have shoot it when it was still weak! Who would have thought it was a transforming monster? No one! Because they're all dead!'
As he ran very far, he heard a thunderous roar behind, the ground vibrated and the clouds above dispersed. Victor was tempted to looked back, but because he had already encountered a similar situation before when hunting, he didn't. If a person flee, he/she must only look forward and used all the speed he/she could muster... or die.
Hearing a booming sound from afar that was getting closer, Victor already arrived at the huge castle. Now that he took a closer look at it, it was no longer huge. It was massive! The entrance was 15 meters in his approximation and the thickness of many columns before him was 2.5 meters in diameter.
He had no time to admire the massive castle and entered without hesitation. The interior of the massive castle compliment to the outer structure of it. The ceiling was high, the stairways were wide and at the center of the hall was a sharp pointed obelisk, nine meters high and one meter thick.
"Roar!!!!"
Victor was awakened by the roar as he immediately ran towards the stairs upward. Going to the balcony, he hid himself behind a wall and observed the incoming huge shadow.
As it entered the hall, Victor saw what the monster looked like. It had a one meter horn over its forehead, two pairs of bloodshot eyes, a maw ripped with sharp fangs like a zipper, with precisely 12 feet height and packed with muscles that it walked like a gorilla.
Bids of cold sweat formed on his face as Victor saw the monster. No, it was no monster, but a devil. It emitted a malevolent evil aura that the air around it distorted and black ghost flew while howling in pain.
Victor had never seen a monster like it before. Never even in books. He was enticed to use his Analysis Skill on it to see what it truly was. But if he do that, it might uncovered his hiding spot.
"This devil monster must be the reason there are no monster inside the ruins. Even the tribes of savage races outside never had the courage to take one step inside." Victor concluded as he used his Analysis Skill.
[Name: ????? ?????]
[Race: ???]
[Level: ???]
[Power: ??? | Dexterity: ??? | Spirit: ???]
[Physique: ??? | Vitality: ??? | Resistance: ???]
[Active Skill: ??? ??? | ?? ??? | ??? ???? | ?????]
[Passive Skill: ???? ???? ??? | ????? ??? | ???? ???? | ???]
[Unique Skill: ????]
[Info: An unknown malevolent devil created through the most evilest ritual. Billions of soul was sacrificed to it.
First Sealed Form: Black Rabbit | Second Sealed Form: Devil Gorilla | Third Sealed Form: ???? | Fourth Sealed Form: ???? | Fifth Sealed Form: ???? | Sixth Sealed Form: ???? | Unsealed Form: ????]
Seeing the Status and Info of the devil monster, Victor's heart pound in fear as his mind screamed with his face as white as paper while his legs were trembling.
Overcome by fear, he ran upstairs and the devil monster noticed him, followed by a roar that shook the massive castle. Small rocks and dust fell out as the devil monster chased after Victor upstairs.
Victor had never felt do fearful before as he ran for his life ignoring the roaring devil monster behind and loud crushing rocks as it bulldozed everything on its path.
Third floor... Fifth floor... Ninth floor... Thirteenth floor... Twenty third floor...
Victor never counted how many floors he had surmounted as his body ached from running and his breath turned heavy.
Going into the last floor with many chests, Victor came into a dead end. However, he never despair and searched for a way out. But it was too late as the devil monster had caught up to him.
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The entrance was destroyed as it glared at Victor and slowly walked towards him with quaking footsteps. Victor felt fear all over his body and couldn't move as he was pasted on the wall.
As the devil monster came into the center of wide room, the floor beneath it cracked and it didn't noticed it, but Victor did. His eyes shone with hope as his trembling hand grabbed a dagger from his Magic Storage Bag.
When the cracks had spread on the entire floor, Victor gave it the last thing it needed. He kicked the floor with all his might and it cave in. The whole floor was destroyed and everything on it fell along with the devil monster, while he was tightly grabbing on his dagger that was deeply embedded on the wall.
"Roar!!!!"
The devil monster roared in wrath as it destroyed floors as it fell from the highest floor due to its heavy weight. When it reached the ground floor after several seconds, Victor heard a very loud roar that he felt his eardrums aching. After that, everything turned silent.
"It should have died..."
Using his last bit of strength, grabbed another dagger from his Magic Storage Bag and used both his daggers as tool to come down. Slowly, he came down to the ground floor by stabbing his daggers on the wall while supporting himself. Fortunately, Victor had done something like this before in the mountains and forest. Thus, it was an easy feat for him. He to do it this ways as the floors and stairs was destroyed by the devil monster.
After several minutes, he finally came back to the hall and the sight before him was unbelievable. His eyes widened in shock.
The devil monster was impaled on the sharp obelisk on the chest!
Victor sighed deeply and could not help but laugh as he once again survived. "No wonder, it roared very loud last time. So it was dying.... Hmm?"
[You have killed an World End Class Monster. Your contribution was evaluated and you will receive your rewards.]
Victor was stunned. "Huh? I killed it? But it fell on its own..."
As he fell on his butt to rest, he recalled what happened before and saw how thick the floors were. "So... That kick of mine truly destroyed the floor. If I hadn't done that, I might have died and became a food for this devil huh..." Laughing wryly, he shook his head. "I'm really lucky..."
[Your level has risen from Level 11 to Level 31]
[Evaluation complete. Power +25, Dexterity +33, Spirit +21, Physique +30, Vitality +29, Magic +15]
[Due to defeating a Greatest Evil that will become a threat to the world in the near future. You have been rewarded with a Unique Skill.]
[Unique Skill: Hero's Gift from the Devil]
[Grade: World End]
[Info: Your enemies empower you. Half of the overall Stats of the being you defeated will become yours, as well as all the compatible Skills it possessed.]
Reading the notifications, Victor was stumped dumbfounded as he read the Unique Skill. His body quivered with excitement as he roared. "Argh!!! Thank you, Voice of the World!"
However, it still didn't stopped there.
[Unique Skill: Hero's Gift from the Devil activated.]
[You have killed a World End Class Monster - Greatest Evil•Devil of Catastrophe | Level: 890]
[Half of the over all Stats of World End Class Monster - Greatest Evil•Devil of Catastrophe will become yours, as well as all the compatible Skills.]
Sitting not far from the Greatest Evil • Devil of Catastrophe, several golden lights flew out from its body towards Victor as he was enveloped in golden lights that immediately disappeared. It was instantaneous, but he could feel the tremendous increase of his strength.
[Your stats are increasing: Power +255, Dexterity +210, Spirit +290, Physique +305, Vitality +205, Magic +190]
[New Skills learned]
[Active Skill: Earth Collapse | Destruction Strike | Catastrophe | Armageddon]
[Passive Skill: Titan Strength | Darkness Immunity | All-ailments Resistant | Dark Vision]
[Unique Skill: Soul Collector]
"This trip of mine has a great reward than all my trips before combined... Hmm...?" Victor muttered. He stood as leveling up revitalized his body, restoring his strength. When all was over, only did he noticed the treasures that littered the ground, glittering golds and awesome rare items.
Also, when he thought back on what happened. He was very lucky. With the high Vitality and Physique of the Greatest Evil • Devil of Catastrophe, it wouldn't die even if it fell from the 35th floor. Furthermore, from that first encounter when the Greatest Evil • Devil of Catastrophe transformed from a harmless Black Rabbit, if he hadn't ran as far as he could, he had already died with how fast the it was. If he stopped or slowed his speed when running upstairs, he would also die. He was on the verge of death.
"Anyway, thanks to my luck, I'm still alive. With this luck today, I might become unlucky tomorrow. This trip should stop here. I don't want to stay here any longer. Who knows, there might be another one... If so, my death will be certain." Victor grinned as looked at the treasures around. "But before everything else, I'll collect all this treasures. Leaving them here is a waste. Hahaha!"
Victor left no rocks unturned as he collected every gold coins and items from the floor and put them inside the chest before storing them in his Magic Storage Bag as its space was only 100 cubic meter.
As Victor was busy collecting his spoils, he didn't noticed that it was already noon and the sun was in the highest point. Suddenly, a golden ray of light descended from above to the sharp obelisk. The carvings on the sharp obelisk lit up as it gave off a warm and soothing feeling.
The corpse of the Greatest Evil • Devil of Catastrophe was enveloped in golden lights as all the blurry light surged out from it towards the sky. When Victor looked closely, he found out that all the blurry lights were actually the souls of the people that the Greatest Evil • Devil of Catastrophe had collected and eaten. Due to the golden light from the sharp obelisk, they were purified.
As the last soul left the corpse of the Greatest Evil • Devil of Catastrophe, he floated and looked at Victor with a warm smile. "Thank you, for helping us be freed from the curse of Greatest Evil. I didn't expected that this day would come as we have already lost all our hope. However, you gave us another chance. If we let you died just like the others we might no longer obtain the freedom we longed for. Thus, we used all our last bit of consciousness to help you."
Another soul of a man appeared and sneered. "Don't think that you are strong cause you defeated the Greatest Evil • Devil of Catastrophe. All you have done was run and flee. How cowardly."
Victor felt his eye twitched in irritation, but he couldn't refute. He sighed. "All I can say is, my luck is really good. So you all are the reason why that monster is so weak that couldn't even catch me when I'm escaping with my life."
More souls appeared and smiled at him. A soul dressed in royal robe and had a crown bowed to him in dignified manner. "You have my thanks on behalf of my subjects, Mr. Hunter. I am amazed how you can run so fast with only two legs. Hahahah!"
Victor smile and nodded. "I'm amazed as well. It's the first time I've run that fast. Even when I'm running away from an enraged Demonic Asura Bear, I'm not that fast. Actually, if I ever looked back when I'm running for my life, I might have died on the spot."
"You're right. For you to be decisive in your actions, you definitely encountered many life threatening dangers. It is one of the factors why you now stand before us." A knight soul said.
A beautiful lady knight smile wryly and shook her head. "In the end, what we need isn't a Hero, but a Hunter that knew how to escape when his life is in danger." She smiled at Victor and said. "You're not the only person that discovered this Phantom City. Many Heroes came before you, but they died and their souls were devoured. And I am one of those peerless heroes. You have my thanks, Mr. Hunter."
Victor nodded and smile. "No one will be angry if I take all the treasures here right?"
The King answered. "Hahaha! Of course! Treasures are for the living to enjoy! Dead people have no use for them. Take it all. That is your additional reward for helping us. Also, don't forget to take the Sun Obelisk and other treasures in the hidden basement beneath that staircase. You will find them very useful. Our time is up. Good luck on your hunting, Mr. Hunter."
Another soul of a lady came and bowed to Victor. "Hero. I advise you to leave the city before night falls or you will be forever imprisoned here. Good bye, Hero. May you have a long and happy life."
And the souls, one by one, disappeared into the sky.