The Dark King

by Steffen Schmidt

  Glenn looked back and sighed: "His body has been infected, it's only in 'suspended animation' state. Evil is going to consume his soul and once again he will stand up as an undead. We will incinerate him."

  The other hunters' face expressions changed into a sad one as they looked down at dead swordsman. This was the only sore of this trip.

  "I will take back his sword!" Knight came up and picked the sword from the ground. He spoke in a low tone: "We have been in the same team for last three tasks... Didn't expect this one will separate us...forever."

  Gatt came forward and patted his shoulder but stayed silent without uttering a word.

  Its very difficult to understand meaning of life. For ordinary people it was very common to take life and death as a normal occurrence. But for hunters it was something that they had to be accustomed to as the time passed.

  Knife-wielding youth and the knight went around to find combustible materials. They piled papers, wood and clothing on dead swordsman body. With the help of fire sickle they ignited fire to incinerate the swordsman. Crimson red flames were reflected on everyone's face as they watched his body burn to ashes.

  As the fire was extinguished the only thing left of him were ashes and leftover bones. Glenn approached and buried them on the spot.

  After dealing with the swordsman body Glenn stood up and came to the black weaver's body.

  Knife-wielding hunter came forward to help Glenn. Both of them were skilled at dissecting the beast. The knife sliced through mucosa and the hard shell of the beast was stripped off.

  It was a rare opportunity to learn the anatomy of the beast so Dudian came up to watch them. Although he had learned the ways to dissect some common beasts while in the scavenger training camp but complete dissection of various useful parts of a monster's body with such a complex structure was a very difficult task.

  Blood began to flow everywhere and pungent smell floated around as the various internal organs rolled down to ground.

  Dudian quietly watched. Perhaps the object of dissection was a monster so that he didn't feel nauseous while watching the whole process.

  It didn't take long before hard shell, head, spiked limbs and the other parts of the giant black weaver were dismembered respectively. Dudian saw Glenn cut open the black weaver head. She pulled out white soft cotton from the groove in the jaw bone. From the expression on her face it should be some valuable and useful material.

  "Strange. It turned empty out in here! Did it...?" Knife-wielding hunter's face turned ugly as he cut open the black weaver's belly.

  Glenn looked past as she heard the words. There was nothing in the stomach in addition to internal organs. The place behind the stomach was empty, flat.

  Dudian was puzzled as he heard the hunter talk but from their dialogue he knew that they were talking about the ovary.

  "Did it spawn before coming to hunt?" Glenn was speculating but shook her head and continued: "No its impossible. The young eggs have low survival rate. It would be very difficult for them to hatch out. Even if they hatch out, parasitic worms would be very weak and can't form the magic marks."

  Knife-wielding youth was disappointed but continued to collect the other useful parts.

  Dudian saw that he took out a mass of yellow liquid from its stomach. He found it odd and asked: "What is this?"

  "It's fat." The knife-wielding hunter looked at Dudian. He was more modest towards Dudian as he thought of Glenn's praise for Dudian: "Its excellent material to fuel the oil lamp. Nobility loves to use it."

  Dudian dawned over to check it closely as he didn't expect that people were willing to use stuff like this to fuel the lamps.

  It didn't take long before the giant black weaver's body was completely decomposed. All of its valuable parts were neatly piled together while the rest of internal organs, flesh and blood were scattered over. It was done so to prevent other monsters to come to eat the leftovers. Glenn used the fire to incinerate the scattered invaluable parts.

  The air was filled with strange pungent smell. It felt like the meat soaked in blood was cooked.

  Dudian covered his nose. But he suddenly smelled the black weaver's odor. He concentrated more and more on this odor and it seemed to be coming out from the soil.

  Dudian was surprised as he sniffed more to detect the location where the odor was spreading from. Few meters away from the initial place where they had killed the black weaver, there was flat but fluffy soil. He remember the conversation between knife-wielding youth and Glenn: "Is that...?"

  At this time, the archer youth suddenly said: "As the hunt for black weaver is over, I wanna go to other areas and check if I can find something rare. After all this adrenaline, I'm feeling a bit itchy... Maybe I'll be a bit lucky? Ha? "

  Glenn was filling everything to a large storage bag as she looked up at him and said: "Its alright but I have just absorbed the magic marks. I'm a bit weakened and will have to return to the giant wall to rest. If you want to you can go but I have to remind you that it is going to be dangerous!"

  "Its alright. I heard that there are teams in area no 6 implementing some tasks. I will join and co-operate with them while trying my luck!" The archer youth laughed.

  Glenn thought about and said: "Alright, whatever you say."

  Dudian thought of his own storage in area no 9 and immediately said: "I wanna go to."

  "You?" Glenn glanced at him and frowned: "Area no 6 is too dangerous. There will be many high level beasts there so its not alright for you to leave."

  "I will go to the other areas," said Dudian, " Undeads may not amount to anything in their perspective but I've been short on money lately."

  Glenn thought for a moment:" Its ok. But cold crystal are not much of a value. If you are that anxious for money I can lend you as long as its not more than 100,000 gold coins."

  Dudian was staggered. One hundred thousand gold coins? It was an astonomical number. It was enough to buy a small town in the residential district!

  "No, I don't need that much... Moreover, I want to earn myself." Dudian replied.

  Glenn saw his determination: "Alright, I'll escort you back."

  Dudian nodded as he didn't dare to run around alone in this area.

  Chapter 111: Eggs of the black weaver

  Soon, Glenn had loaded all the parts of the black weaver into a large storage bag. It was enormously big in comparison to her small thin body but she easily took it up.

  Dudian hesitated for a moment when he saw Glenn ready to leave. Nevertheless he said: "There seems to be something there." He pointed towards the ground. Although it was speculation of his own but taking into account his ability he decided to go forward with it.

  "Oh?" Glenn looked surprised: "You smell something!?"

  "In the soil," replied Dudian.

  Everyone had full confidence in Dudian's sense of smell after the previous accurate tracking. All of them took out their weapons so that they would be ready in case of emergence. Glenn winked at knight and the latter as if understanding her message went over to the place where Dudian had pointed to.

  He began to poke the ground. Team members saw round white objects in the sand after knight dag about thirty centimeters pit. Glenn and the others eyes lit up: "The black weaver's eggs!"

  There were eight black weaver eggs found inside the pit.

  Dudian saw that his guess was on point. He was both happy and sorry in his heart. Unfortunately his strength was too weak or he could leave the team and sneak back to take them. However, this area was too dangerous and even the intermediate silver hunters were afraid to roam alone. Although he has super sense of smell and can detect the monsters in advance but there were beasts who had means to hide their own smell and quietly reach their prey. This kind of monsters weren't uncommon in this area.

  He had reconsidered this option because he didn't want to take the risk. After all God may not always bless him with luck.

  Glenn looked at the black weaver's eggs in her hands.: "There are eight of th
em so there is an opportunity for one of them to survive. I can absorb this one later on to enhance the rate and strength of my magic marks."

  Knight was also quite happy.

  However, Dudian suddenly noticed the archer who was standing next to him. Although he was laughing and congratulating Glenn but his expression was blunt. Moreover because of the gap in height between both of them, Dudian could easily see that his palm was clenched into a fist. His thumb skid because of the force. Dudian suddenly understood as he wryly smiled in his heart.

  "When the black weaver was fighting and dealing with us didn't have the opportunity to secretly hide its eggs." Glenn recalled the previous battle. She sighed as she look at Dudian: "Fortunately you are careful in your observation or else we would miss the eight immature eggs."

  Dudian smiled but stayed silent. He was helplessly thinking that though it was unintentional but he seems to have offended the archer youth. The latter had ultrasonic hearing ability so he should aso hear the sound emitted from the buried black weaver's eggs. That was why he proposed to go to area no 6 for hun. Obviously it was an excuse and he was clearly waiting for the team to leave. He later would secretly get back to take the eggs.

  But archer's plan was unsuccessful and exposed in front of Glenn and the other knight. After all, they were not stupid and could understand every but didn't exposed their anger.

  "I have gained another enemy ... ..." Dudian looked up at the young archer's eyes. He was surprised to see that he was still smiling. But Dudian still felt that he had to remember archer's appearance. In case he meets him outside the giant wall in the future, he would have to stay as far as possible from him. Or else he would be target of secret revenge and will be trapped in a situation beyond redemption.

  "It's all Dean's credit that we could accidentally find the eight immature eggs." Glenn looked at Dudian thought for a moment and said: "In accordance with the consortium's prices this rare monster egg costs 1000 gold coins. However everything depends on the survival rate, so the value can turn upside down."

  "I'll give them to consortium to allocate the prices. But total price of four of the eggs would belong to Dean as he was the one to find it. It would be four thousand gold coins. The rest of you will get one thousand gold coins compensation each. As the eggs are immature, I'll give them to consortium to help me cultivate them."

  Glenn smiled as she saw that neither knight nor the others objected her distribution.

  Dudian was surprised as he saw Glenn give him a lot of share while distribution. He didn't expect half of the value to be distributed to him. Moreover, he would gain her goodwill.

  "We gotta thank Dean's nose this time!" knight laughed out loud.

  Gatt also smiled and patted Dudian's shoulder, said: "Good one."

  Dudian smiled as he exchanged polite words with the others.

  Glenn put away the eight young eggs and the crowd retreated along the same route.

  Along the way, Dudian's sense of smell and the archer's ultrasonic hearing helped them to avoid many monsters. However they still encountered few beats. Moreover, one of them had ambushed them and attacked but fortunately because of Glenn's fast and quick response it was killed.

  Through the battles Dudian gradually came to understand Glenn's battle strength. She could easily cope with monsters up to level 20. However, she was having problems with monsters above the level 20. For example, if she alone encountered black weaver, which was a level 26 beast, her life would be threatened.

  After all, without Dudian's advance notice of black weaver's position, it would have quietly lurker over to attack and Glenn wouldn't be able to detect its presence in time.

  Glenn escorted the team out of the area no 1. They came to the forest with giant trees next to the highway. They continued to escort Dudian until the area no 7 which was swept clean.

  The area no 7 was already being swept clean by the hunters while Dudian was still a scavenger. Now it has been cleaned through. Even if there are occasional monsters left but with his strength he could avoid and escape them. Unless, if his luck was bad he could meet the most dangerous beasts of the area no 7.

  As they entered the area no 7, Glenn and the other left leaving Dudian alone.

  Dudian had seen Scott's map and remember pieces and bits but he still asked Glenn about the routes. The area no 7 was not far away from area no 9. He was heavily armed so he was going to hunt in area no 7 before leaving to area no 9.

  In the area no 7, Dudian saw lots of undeads roaming around. Glenn and the others informed him that the undeads were the last to be cleaned out. Unless they are on hunter team's way they will be killed. Generally hunters would not take the initiative to look for them.

  Each time a new area is cleaned, the first to be search and killed would be monsters with parasitic worms. Because they would be the most dangerous neasts of the area.

  Beasts with parasitic monsters would be much more powerful than ordinary monsters.

  If they hunted the undeads then some monster will flee to other areas. Especially they could go to areas under the other consortiums command. It was equivalent to donating the 'cream' of the crop to the other consortium.

  Dudian was not panicked when he saw the aimlessly roaming undeads. But he was full of joy. He found a building and reached to a high ground. He began to throw stones to make sound and attract the undeads from the other areas.

  Chapter 112: The enemies meet

  Hunting level four ordinary undead was primary hunter's favorite compared to other beasts. Undead's would chase on instinct. Its enough to use simple traps to kill them unlike other monsters which have cultivated beast-like sense of survival. Even the 'bone rats' knew how to avoid dangerous situation and were pretty difficult to capture using traps.

  However, it had to be noted that ordinary undead would evolve into a skeleton after going through another mutation. After heavily consuming and reaching the new level, all of its capability would leap up and upgrade. It would reach a level where it could directly fight head on with an intermediate silver level hunter. Moreover it would have a sense of consciousness and would not be easily killed by external forces.

  Dudian had previously seen a skeleton's corpse in the area no 1. At the moment, he could easily distinguish this once as ordinary undeads and that's why he dared to hunt them using traps.

  Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

  Arrows flew out. His effective range was 100 meters and it was actually height of a twenty four story building. Normally, the height of majority of residential buildings was around four to five meters between each floor.

  Dudian was standing on twenty's floor right now, about 80 meters from the ground level. Roof was dangerous to stand as the concrete was crumbling because of serious corrosion. He used stones to attract the undead's into his effective range.

  Arrows accurately hit the undeads. He was able to capture their movement trajectories easily after the high-intense experience with the black weaver. Dudian felt a lot easier shooting the undeads in comparison to black weaver. It was much easier to predict their actions.

  Arrow would hit the undead from its head and nail it to the ground.

  Occasionally he would hit the undead's shoulder or the arrow would pierce its face. The force of the shot would be enough to stumble its body onto ground but an undead would feel no pain. So most of the time they would stand up to run towards the direction of the sound.

  Dudian would continuously pull the string and shot the arrows.

  Arrows in Dudian's quiver ran out as he went to pull another arrow from the back but couldn't grab onto any. He had a wry smile on his face because of the joy. He went to the other side of the building and began to throw stones to attract the gathered undeads to another location.

  Stones fell onto the neighboring streets. Sounds of fallen stones echoed out loudly in silent ruins. Undead's ear were particularly keen so they immediately gathered to move towards the source of the sound.

  Dudian quickly went down the stair
s while he smeared undead powder all over his body. He reached the ground floor and went over to the pile of corpses of undeads. He cut their heads or fracture them from their necks. He took seven or eight heads and carried them back into the building. He squatted at a corner and began to cut open the heads. He found cold crystals inside and began to collect them.

  As he finished with this batch, Dudian ran outside to collect more heads and brought back to dissect them in the corner.

  In about three tries, he had collected all the heads of the undeads and the arrows that he had shot before were recovered too.

  However, after this he didn't continue to hunt but went back to the roof of the building. He took out one of the cold crystal and sliced his finger. The hot blood dropped onto crystal. It seemed like ice had encountered the hot water. The location where the blood dropped, the crystal began to melt turning into a transparent silver liquid.

  Dudian continued to observe.

  He stopped dropping the blood to check how the cold crystal would end up. Over the time, the temperature of the blood cooled down however it didn't freeze back into cold crystal.

  Dudian was relieved but he thought that just this one experiment was not enough as an insurance. He returned downstairs and collected the blood of undeads. However, the blood of undead couldn't melt the crystal. Instead when it dropped onto the crystal it was frozen immediately, changing to a shape of dark red tear.

  Dudian was assured after this: "After absorbing the magic marks my blood had changed. Cold crystal can't erode my blood. It means that I should be able to directly absorb the cold crystals."

  He clutched the cold crystal as he wanted to directly absorb it. However there still was a trace of hesitation in his heart. Although he knew that according to his speculation his body would be able to absorb it but as a human he was afraid of the unknown. Moreover, he knew that one experiment was not enough to prove that results would be stable. He was uncertain about the side effects that could pop up after a long period of absorption of cold crystals.