Life Hunter

After Arima intoned his magic, his body emitted a bunch of different colors. Around him, tens of lines of chants wrote themselves in a dark red color. Each word glowed strongly and a destructive aura crushed every attack that was aiming at Arima.

His appearance also changed. He became taller and burlier, and the scales on his body became radiant. Each one of his injuries already had healed and his clothes were restored. Like nothing ever happened to him. Even worse for his opponents, he seemed stronger than before the fight started.

Arima smirked, he took a step forward and disappeared. His figure reappeared next to the king, which he kicked and sent flying away. He crashed in the middle of the town's ruins and formed a crater with his own body. He was full of injuries and could barely keep consciousness as he tried to lift his head.

All of this happened while the queen only had the time to turn her head to look. She was shocked and before she could say or do anything, Arima already was already in front of the king lying on the ground. He beheaded him with Karma and stole the life force flowing out.

The succubus could only watch helplessly while her husband was killed. She suddenly realized that she was now the only one remaining in her family. The reality struck her and she started to cry, "Why?!" She shouted at the man who killed all of her family.

Arima looked coldly at her, "You don't need to know why. But you don't have the right to cry for injustice when you did the same." His voice sounded ethereal as if he was talking from every direction.

Those words hit her violently. She bit her lip and charged at Arima with all of her strength. She tried to create an illusion but Arima destroyed it with a wave of his hand. She tried to attack him with earth magic, but her attacks crumbled away just before reaching their target. Then she tried to stab him but the blade of her dagger broke when it touched his skin. From the beginning to the end, Arima didn't move and silently watched.

"How? How did you become so powerful?" She asked weakly and dropped her dagger.

Arima snorted, "You don't have any use for that information."

The succubus fell on her knees and closed her mouth. She decided to wait.

Arima was a bit surprised. He called back Karma and Ira and walked to her. He grabbed her by the collar and lifted her to stare at her eyes.

"Before dying, look at your own sins. [Penitentia conspiciunt]," He chanted and his eyes ignited with a blue flame. The queen's eyes began to petrify and she died after she shed her last tear.

Arima collected her life force and ended the resonance. Night reappeared as a dragon and looked tired. Arima slowly rubbed his nose with his hand and when he looked at his fingers afterward, there was blood on them.

"As expected, that technique is a bit troublesome."

The 'One Hundred Parade' is a magic which needs both Night and Arima to work together. When the two are fighting, even their minds become one, which gives them the ability to create a parallel thinking process.

This magic makes use of that ability. First, Arima needs to channel his mana and concentrate his soul at the same time. Next, Night has to conjure a hundred different enhancing magic and activate them all the same time.

In combat, Night keeps the magic active while Arima fights. The only problem with that magic is the toll put on Arima's body and Night's spirit. At most, they could use that technique for maximum an hour without breaking down.

After finishing off the queen, they rested for around an hour. Arima burned every corpse in the dimension to avoid it being sent back in the other side and discovered afterward. In that case, the Lilin people will only think that they disappeared and will never reach the point where they are sure that their rulers were killed by someone.

After stopping the connection with the dimension, Arima and Night returned to the silent and calm town which wasn't destroyed by a fight at all.

Arima teleported quickly to the room he rented. He laid down on his bed and slept. He didn't care that Lanya was quietly watching him. Night laid down on the floor, as a wolf, and instantly fell asleep as well.

************************************

The next day, Arima woke up early. He glanced at Night and Lanya who were sleeping and left the room. He climbed on the roof of the Inn with a simple jump and sat down.

He closed his eyes and checked the life force in his body. He circulated it to stabilize his body.

He had already realized that his body now was around the mid-rank of the ninth level. His affinity with earth improved to the same level as his light magic. His mana pool expanded by only a hundredth though.

While he was busy familiarizing with his new strength, the entire town was restless. The king, the queen, and some of their children had vanished and were nowhere to be found.

Arima had actually left some people alive in the tower. Not by compassion, but after he carefully chose. First of all, he didn't kill the slaves that were in the tower and also didn't do anything to the children who were not guilty or too young.

As for how he knew who was innocent or not, it was thanks to the combination of darkness, light, and mind magic. When one has bad emotions or the opposite, he would have a part of darkness, or light, bigger than the other.

Basically, with mind magic, you can pry into the spirit to see if there's more darkness than light. If there's a larger portion of darkness, then the person is quite dangerous and malicious. But that magic doesn't work on everyone and isn't 100% effective. But Arima had no qualms using it.

In the end, the royal family was now broken apart but because there were some children left, one of them would inherit the throne soon.

Arima thought that he should leave soon. He could easily teleport outside now that the queen was dead and it was only when he had to enter that he had to be cautious anyway.

While Arima was meditating, Night woke up too and jumped on the roof to join him. He sat beside him and yawned.

"So, where do we go now?"

"As I said, you choose."

Night sighed and mused, "What about vampires? If you still want people with a strong life force, it's not a bad choice."

"No, I won't do anything to the vampires. From what I see in the queen's memories, they're not 'angels', but they aren't corrupted or really dangerous. They usually stay in their territory and they also barely fight humans or beasts. They only do so to drink blood." Arima opened his eyes and explained. He had finished refining the life force.

"Oh? I thought that you would attack them nonetheless."

"Could you stop treating me like a cruel and selfish guy? Do you have any other suggestion?"

"Mh, the undead territory then," Night proposed. "One more time, in terms of life force, they are not bad. They are undead because they are driven by pure life essence after all. Also, one more point is that undead are as mindless as they are ruthless. They also can gain comrades from other races' bodies, so it's not a bad thing to reduce their strength a bit now."

"Good idea." Arima processed every information he had about the undead in this continent and smiled, "Maybe I will be able to learn a thing or two about death magic."

"Maybe," Night nodded. "I just ask of you to not lose control and annihilate every life on the continent."

"That will be the last region I visit in this monster territory." Arima ignored Night's remark and changed the subject.

"By the way Arima, can we go there on foot?"

Arima glanced at him, "I thought that you would never ask. It's good that you already took the title of master." He smiled, "I'm okay with that. There's nothing to rush. Train that girl as much as you want. Ask me if you want any help."

"Thanks."

Arima stood up and returned inside the Inn. He saw that Layla was still asleep so he left to eat something in town while Night went out to hunt for food himself.

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In a gloomy castle, a man with white skin, black hair, and red eyes, was eating his lunch mannerly whilst drinking blood. He was, of course, a vampire.

During his lunch, a steward entered the room and bowed, "Your Highness, I have something to report."

"Say it," The 'Highness' answered calmly.

"Yes. From a report I received, the succubus queen and incubus king disappeared last night without leaving a trace along with some of their children. Soon, I think a new king or queen will rise to the throne." He reported shortly with a steady voice.

The vampire, who was about to sip on his glass, froze. He looked seriously at his servant, "Do you know how they disappeared?"

"No, Your Highness. There was nothing hinting what could've happened. We can't be sure that they weren't assassinated, but it's unlikely because killing them would be impossible without leaving a single trace if we consider their abilities. If someone really killed them, then I don't know…"

The vampire drank his 'beverage' silently, "What kind of person could do that, huh?" He completed his servant's sentence and smiled, "Interesting."

******************************

Back at the Lilin town, Arima and Night reunited at the Inn after an hour. Lanya was waiting for them there.

"The training will start today," Night said to her in a sort of professional way. "We will head to the undead zone on foot. You'll fight with every foe we come across. I will only help when you're about to die."

"I understand." She nodded then pointed at Arima, "What about him?"

"I will support Night's tutoring if necessary and if you ever fall in a situation where you're both in danger then I'll act. As for the rest of the time, I'll just stay behind, eat some snacks, and do some enchantment while observing." Arima smiled brightly.

"…fine," Lanya acquiesced.

"Then let's go," Arima clapped his hands. A circle covered the floor of the room and the three of them were immediately transferred away.

They reappeared outside of the town, at the outskirts of the forest surrounding it. When they teleported, it took a few seconds for Lanya to react. The scenery around her changed from an Inn room to a rocky plain. She was dumbfounded. She never even heard about someone capable of casting this kind of magic so easily and quickly.

Now, she couldn't even dare to doubt that man's strength. She was aware that something happened in the town last night and that Arima was involved, but she didn't get the chance to learn what occurred. She was gradually beginning to feel frightened by him and she didn't know why exactly.

Night looked at her and tried to calm her down, "Don't worry, he's not a bad person. He is the type who knows how to use power."

Maybe it worked, but she at least stopped over thinking it.

"Mh" Arima hummed and spun in place with a pensive expression before pointing in a certain direction, "Go in that direction for… around two thousand miles. If I count sleep, fight, and your average speed, then maybe it will take around a week." He uttered and smiled again.

"Eh?" Lanya exclaimed just after that.