There were two enforcers guarding the house outside while a nurse attended to the three victims of Prison Mosquito toxin.

He could tell that multiple enforcers were hiding in plain clothes in the crowd that had gathered in the street. Many people had noticed the pursuit, and the entire neighborhood had heard the warning howls of the two transcendent enforcers.

Hundreds of people nearby had been alerted. Lights were on in every house, every corner of the streets. Community patrol had spread out all over the area, helping the enforcers.

From what he had understood, the second scout had memorized the boy's scent while he was inside his bedroom, searching for the artifact. Upon being alerted by their informant and commissioner, the two had immediately chosen to flee. But just as he was escaping, he had noticed a faint scent of the boy leading to the same escape path he had chosen!

It wasn't a surprising development, of course. If someone wanted to leave that house undetected, the large property of the neighbor was indeed an excellent choice.

At that time, delighted with his discovery, the scout had pretended to run away merely to fool his partner-in-crime.

But by the time he had reached the doghouse where the trail of the boy ended, he had found himself in an impasse. The enforcers were already there on the other side of the wall. If he wanted to catch the boy, they'd be alerted.

Just as he had decided to wait it out, the sound of low barking had come from inside the doghouse, as if a sleeping dog had caught a foreign scent waiting outside his home.

The growl hadn't been too loud, but it would definitely warn the law enforcers nearby, especially the transcenders. In his panic, he had assumed that the boy had left a false trail to make him alert the neighbor's dog. So he had aborted his plan and made a swift escape.

"So what made you think the boy really was inside the doghouse, not another dog?" he had asked the scout in the end, feeling confused.

"I...I think the low growls coming from inside were...recordings. Because while I was running away, it occurred to me that there wasn't a scent of another dog in that yard. The boy must have used a recording when he realized that I was outside."

"...Who the fuck carries around recordings of a dog's growls?"

"You could search for one in the entertainment networks, sir. There are lots of videos and audios like that..." the scout had nervously answered.

He hadn't killed the second guy. That wasn't necessary, for now at least.

Even if the boy was still hiding in that doghouse, it would be almost impossible to reach him without being caught...almost.

Taking a deep breath, he landed on the rooftop where he had hidden the corpse of the first scout. He hadn't just wanted to erase any traces of his involvement in this matter, he had also understood that the situation had slipped out of their control. The murder was the backup plan for both issues.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Using the drying blood on the roof, he drew the lady's guidance runes. Soon, a complex pattern surrounded him and the corpse, spread across nearly half the roof.

Placing the body at the center of the rune, he sat outside its boundary and began to chant.

"Darkchild, Blessed Daughter of Celestial Parasite, Monarch of the Deepest Abyss, Ruler of Ceasless Greed..."

From legible words, his chant morphed into an assembly of twisted, garbled sounds. The blood-drawn rune began to sizzle, emitting a cloud of black smoke that wafted into the corpse at its center. Excitedly, he sped up his chant, trying to wrap this up as fast as possible.

The corpse's eyelids began to twitch faintly soon, its entire body surrounded by the black smoke. Knowing that the summoning ritual was a success, he quickly bowed, head on the ground.

"Lady, this one seeks guidance!"

A long silence passed, broken by a cough from the corpse.

"Pray."

It was one word, but it brought an enormous relief to him along with a sense of superiority.

Sunbreaker, Doomhorn, Spacebound Sage, Warheart, Limitless... Which of these so-called gods could compare to the lady? She was a matchless shadow, a giant towering over reality itself! She was a real god, unlike those distant mythical beings who had no ability to help their worshippers.

"Lady, I pray for a blessing to be cast on my contracted companion, the Shadowbolt Snake. It will help me retrieve a precious artifact, which could greatly boost our influence in this ruined world."

Another stretch of silence passed before the lady replied.

"It is done."

The black smoke flooded out of the corpse and disappeared into the night sky, leaving no traces behind. Even the Blood Rune on the roof was erased at some point, and the corpse itself seemed to have shriveled up completely.

Knowing what was about to happen, he leaped away from the roof, transforming into a mass of shadows that wouldn't be noticed by ordinary eyes in the darkness.

A silent, pitch-black bolt of lightning fell right on the rooftop, obliterating the last trace of the crime scene. The corpse could no longer be seen.

A ruined world doing its best to eliminate its anomalies...

Despite the silence, eyes immediately fell on the building. Every transcender had felt the spiritual shockwave caused by the black bolt.

Taking advantage of the disturbance among the enforcers created by the bolt, he slipped into the large property, hiding under the inch-high grass. His current serpentine form was truly useful, making the Shadowbolt Snake his favorite contacted creature. Its mutant ability to use its shadow as cover to integrate with the darkness of the world made him a capable assassin. And the Lady's blessing had enhanced the affinity of the snake with darkness. For a temporary period, he'd be able to wield the power of a grade-3 mutant in the form of the snake!

Even though extra lights had been lit in the area to illuminate the surroundings, an indistinguishable shroud of darkness began to spread around him. Those who cast their sights intentionally or unintentionally at the yard seemed to find nothing unusual about how dark a particular corner of the yard had become.

He slithered towards the doghouse cautiously and tried to sense what was inside. So long as there was a shred of darkness inside the doghouse, he would sense it! He would be able to slip in without a sound, without opening the door, and his bite...

One bite from a grade-3 mutant Shadowbolt snake could bring down even an endemic elephant in the same grade.

But as he reached the kennel, he realized that his hopes had been in vain. It was indeed dark inside the tiny house, enabling him to clearly sense every grain, every molecule in there without even entering.

There was only a warm piece of cloth inside, perhaps a shirt. The boy must have made his escape while they were busy handling the enforcers.

Curse the sun!

But all hope was not lost, not yet!

He ended his transformation, returning to his original human form. Crawling into the kennel before he could be seen, he waited for a minute, and then began to transform again, but partially this time.

Just like the two werewolves that had chased the second scout, his body morphed into a hybrid between man and wolf.

A heavy snort came out of his nostrils as the painful transformation came to an end. He took a long, long sniff, savoring the scent of the boy from the kennel, and the shirt he had left in there.

His current grade-2 mutation was solely focused on trailing an enemy. With that one sniff, he could identify the exact route taken by the boy while escaping from the doghouse.

But as his eyes tracked the direction his olfactory senses were guiding him in, his powerful breath couldn't help but come to a stop.

The boy had simply returned home.

But for him to leave his shirt here, it had to be an intentional move then, which meant...

Several armed, transformed silhouettes leaped over the walls and rushed towards the doghouse in the expanse of one second.

Instinctively, he wanted to fight his way out. But he realized how costly and narrow an escape that would be.

An ordinary enforcer peeked over the wall and shouted, "You've been surrounded. Any attempt to resist capture will result in deadly assault. Please, surrender."

"Seems like there's only one way to resolve this..." He put his claws in the air and crawled out of the doghouse calmly.

However, the moment the enforcers saw their target of arrest, they shuddered and put their weapons down.

A second later, every enforcer had their hands up, performing rigid salutes.