The Dark King

by Steffen Schmidt

  Dudian felt his scalp tingle. He grabbed his dagger and began to stab onto the monster.

  The monster felt pain and tried to attack and bite Dudian's face.

  Dudian wielded the dagger and cut it off.

  The monster screamed and retracted its body instead of winding around Dudian. Its body slide into toilet. Blood began to float onto the water.

  Dudian was relieved as he saw that he was able to scare away the monster. He carefully climbed out of the collapsed building.

  "I have to deal with the wounds as soon as possible." Dudian felt pain coming from his left leg and abdomen. His face was ugly. He wanted to get out of this place as soon as possible so that the other team would not detect him.

  He took off his armor and used the wet gauze from the first aid bag to cover the wound. Then he found some green vine leave and affixed them on top. The mixture of the plant juice would be able to stop the blood oozing out.

  Afterwards he washed armor clean from the blood stains. He smeard it on the sludge and wore it. Rotten mud smell floated from his body.

  "I must leave this place. Once I'm caught by a large monster, I'll be dead." Dudian was seriously thinking about the possibilities. Camouflaging his smell was to improve his security but for some monsters it wasn't enough to stay undetected.

  Two days passed in the blink of an eye.

  At the border of area no 2.

  Dudian checked the surrounding buildings. He was vagualy able to see Mellon consortium's banner as well as badge pattern painted on the ground symbolizing that this area was under their control.

  "Its area no 6 in front. From there I can pass to area no 9."

  Dudian passed by the banner clutching his stomach. In the past two days he didn't dare to clean up the wound. The first aid products on his body have been soaked. Hemostatic drugs installed in the bottles had little effect as the wound was infected with serious viruses. It was decaying and must be cut off.

  However, cutting off the festering tissue meant that the blood would ooze out.

  In a dangerous zone such as area no 2, Dudian couldn't do anything but enduring the rotting wound. He hoped that he would return to a clean area as soon as possible.

  "I did not expect his purpose was to kill me, rather than test me ... ..."

  Chapter 139: Runaway

  Three days later.

  Boundary of area no 9 belonging to Mellon consortium.

  A dirty body covered in mud drilled out of the tall grasses. He looked around. After being sure that there was no danger he carefully groped out. He was barefoot as he stepped on moss. Moreover, he was unable to walk normally as his left leg was injured.

  "Finally! Returned to the area no 9." Dudian finally breathed out in relief. If he didn't rely on his sense of smell to detect undeads and monsters in advance while he came from area no 6, Dudian would have lost his life 100 times over. Actually once when he was sleeping at night a snake almost killed him. Fortunately he was able to react in time and stab it to death before snake entagled his body.

  Dudian walked towards the location where he had stored cold crystals according to his memory from previous time. Along the way, he sense the smell of rats hiding in the ruins of collapsed buildings. In addition he could sense few monsters who would dive up the sewers once in a while.

  Although hunters could fight head on with land beasts but were helpless against the underwater beasts. There have been attempts of using poison but the sewer systems spread in all directions. So tons of poison wouldn't be able to kill the monsters living in water. Moreover, if a monster wasn't killed by the poision then there was a chance that it would go another evolution and transform into much terrible and horrifying beast.

  A moment later, Dudian found the place guarding his hidden object. He removed the boulder which was hiding the materials. He took out parcel of cold crystals and decayed weapons.

  Dudian put aside the weapons and opened the bag containing crystals. He thought about their real name as he looked at perfectly round, crystal clear cold crystals. "Crystallized souls, is this really the soul of undead?"

  Dudian shook his head as he removed the thoughts. He set off his left sleeve. There was a bit of hesitation as he held the dagger. If it was not totally necessary, he would not want to absorb the cold crystal to enhance his strength. But now he was forced into corner and was in despair. If he didn't enhance his strength he wouldn't be able to return back to the giant wall. The main reason was that because of staying outside for the long term in his injured situation, his body would rapidly corrode because of radiation.

  He cut his wrist and twisted the cold crystal to block the blood to flow out.

  The next moment he saw the cold crystal dissolve into the blood. It was like snow had met the boiling water. It gradually melted into a transparent silver liquid which penetrated into his arm along the blood veins.

  In the blink of an eye, cold crystal that was as big as ping-pong ball melted and disappeared.

  Dudian felt the power surge within his body. He clenched his teeth and used the second cold crystal.

  After the second disappeared into his body, Dudian continued to absorb third, fourth... ...

  He had absorbed ninety cold crystals and there were no signs of abnormality on his arm.

  Dudian looked at the remaining ten cold crystals. He didn't think twice as he continued to absorb them.

  However, the last cold crystal melted slowly. As he grabbed another cold crystal, Dudian felt a chill feeling coming off from his left arm. Moreover there was discomfort radiating off from his magic marks while his stomach felt nauseous. Trace of fatigue and drowsiness attacked his brain. He had learned from his last absorption of cold crystals that when he felt such way he should know the limit and stop. He released the cold crystal and stopped absorbing any more.

  He helf his left arm as he leaned against the wall, quietly waiting for this uncomfortable reaction to fade away.

  However, contrary to his expectations, this sense of dizziness and vomitting didn't weaken but got more intense.

  Dudian felt like it was 'black snow season', he was nude and covered in endless snow. He was shivering because of coldness that hit his body.

  Kaka!

  Dudian heard ice-piercing sound. He looked down to find the source of sound. He saw his left hand began to freeze from his fingertips. Moreover, this frozen ice slowly spread up along his fingers it extended to his palm, then to his wrist. If it continued with this trend it seemed it was going to freeze all his body.

  Dudian panicked. He tried to cover his left wrist with his right hand. However, he saw that biting cold began to cover his right hand and freeze it. In fear, he removed his right hand.

  He thought of fire in this moment of utter panic.

  "The best way to stop the cold is to use fire!", he came up with a plan.

  He picked up dry wood and put them together on ground. Later on, he took out the fire sickle from his pockets using the right hand. While clutching it he began to desperately friction to ignite the fire. Soon, sparks combusted the wood and flared the fire.

  He continued to throw withered vines and dry leaves and stack them up on top of the fire to grow it bigger.

  Nonetheless, the ice was spreading upwards along his left hand. It had spread up to his elbow as he checked the condition of the right arm. Unfortunately, the fire was not enough to warm up his almost frozen arm.

  He clenched his teeth as he shoved his left arm horizontally into the burning flame.

  The ice met the fire and quickly melted. However an intense tingling feeling burst from his arm. It was not result of the burning flame but it felt like countless ice knives were piercing his arm from inside out.

  Dudian took out his left arm from the flame as the pain got more intense.

  The tingling got less tense. However, the freezing began to continue along his arm towards his shoulder. It made him panic. He didn't know what he was going to do if it went off the shoulder towards his throat. "Am
I going to choke to death?"

  He again raised his left arm and shoved it inside the fire.

  Ice gradually melted into water and dripped into fire. It made 'hissing' sounds as water evaporated.

  An intense pain came up from his left arm. It was so anxious that he wanted to tore of his scalp. But he still fought back and tried to restraint himself. He picked a thick dry wood from the ground and tightly bite onto it. The pain was so intense that a low howl similar to a beasts echoed from his throat. Tears began to flow down his eyes through his face and mix with the sweat that was flowing down his forehead. Drops of mixed sweat and tears as big as beans were falling down from his chin.

  He did his best to conquer the pain so he wasn't aware of the passage of time. He didn't know how long it had been, maybe ten minutes maybe less than a minute. But gradually he felt that the pain coming off from his left arm reduced.

  His eyelids were trembling. He slowly opened them and saw that his left arm was burning.

  Hunter's armor is made of animal skins. He had shoved his arm to stop the freezing but totally had forgotten about the armor. His arm was like a stick in fire.

  Dudian retracted his arm in fear and beat it on groun. Soon the flame was extinguished. Charred smoked rised from his left hand.

  Dudian raised his left hand and checked it. The skin was slightly burned while the armor was tattered. He was relieved.

  His face turned smug as he thought: "Why after such a serious injury... ... I don't feel pain?"

  Chapter 140: Dean's sin

  Dudian carefully raised his right hand and gentle touched the burns.

  "How could this be?" Dudian turned pale. Through his right hand he could feel that his left arm's temperature was extremely high. However, the left hand was unconscious. He didn't feel anything at all.

  "Impossible!" Dudian raised his left hand and hit the ground in anger.

  Bang!

  A deep pit was made on ground.

  Dudian was stunned.

  He lifted his left arm and tried to make a fist. Dudian saw that he could freely move his finger. When he wanted to make a fist, the fingers moved and his palm was covered. But he didn't feel anything. Even when his fingers touched his palm there was no feeling coming off.

  It was very strange. Obviously he could see the activities of his left hand. He could freely control it but it happened so that his brain couldn't control the nervous system of the left hand.

  He calmed down as he looked at his left hand. He thought of the pit on the ground. He raised his hand and punched the stones next to him.

  Bang!

  The stones crushed and turned into dust after a hit.

  The stones were made of concrete and had long decayed. Originally, if Dudian wanted to crush them it would be an easy feat. But now it felt that as if he didn't face the stones' reaction force. As if nothing was broken or crushed.

  Dudian grabbed a stone with his right hand and clearly sense the touch. He increased the force of the grab and the stone was again smashed.

  He felt relieved. It seems that his left hand was not unconscious. It's just his strength had indeed improved. Because of excessive power he couldn't feel the resistance.

  Dudian took out the black bow which was next to the other objects. It belonged to Brian who was Linda's younger brother. He pinched the bowstring. As son as he pulled it the bowstring slammed open and almost oppoed into his face.

  "Its very light whether I hold something or pull the bow string." Dudian clenched his hands from both ends of the bow. He put a bit force and the bow suddenly bent into a circle.

  "My strength had enhanced more than double..." Dudian whispered in excitement. But as he checked the burns his left hand the joy in his heart vanished, " Although the strength has increased but my left hand had turned into a vast. It seems the nerve system has gone through necrosis. Is there going to be other consequences? Moreover, because of no sense of touch my grasp of power will be biased. I have to rely on my feelings."

  He sighed as he thought of disadvantages.

  He continued to look after his left hand to see if it would restore back to usual for some time. He temporarily put away the issue as he took out the dagger from the fire. It was burning red. Dudian pulled out disinfectant and gauze from the first aid kit. He opened his belly armor and saw that the abdominal wound he got from the tall youth's spear had resulted in rotten meat on it outer edges.

  He clenched his teeth as he used to dagger to cut off little by little the rotten meat.

  "Hiss!" The pain him go crazy. He held back tightly his right hand. He thought of his left hand which didn't feel anything. It won't be painful so it won't tremble.

  After a moment, anterior part of the abdomen where the rotten flesh existed was cut off and re-bandaged. However the back part was done slowly. As it was inconvenient to operate in such circumstance. However, in the hunter course they had gone through the course which taught them stuff like this in case an emergence occurred in wilderness.

  After a while, the wound on his abdomen was cleared off the rotten flesh. He had put new gauze. It was time to clean his left thigh. The leggings given by the consortium had long been broken and tattered. There was a circle of teeth marks on his thigh as if a row of black holes. The wound was completely rotten.

  Dudian burned the dagger again to cut off the blocks of rotten flesh.

  Ten minutes later, Dudian was finished with bandaging the cleaned wounds. He was tired.

  "I have to wait and get better before going back to the giant wall." Dudian thought that recuperating outside the giant wall was not suitable. Nevertheless dragging his body back was extremely dangerous. Moreover he may have to wait for some time before the underground passage is opened, so it was better to be in better condition before he left to giant wall.

  ...

  ...

  Two weeks later.

  Dudian thought about Peter, Mason and the others as he waited near the iron gate belonging to the passage owned by Mellon Consortium near the area no 9. Once again it opened but Dudian't didn't expect that a hunter team would come out. Impressively, the female archer from the previous team was here.

  The female archer should be assigned to a new team. She was surprised and stunned as she saw Dudian: "You!?"

  Dudian's eyes narrowed as a trace of killing intent flashed by. But he thought of her, the swordsman and the scout who didn't help the captain to attack him. He didn't say anything as he walked into the passage.

  The other four team members who saw dudian were surprised a little. There was no information that a rookie hunter would be here. However, they were relieved when they saw Mellon consortium's badge on Dudian's armor. One of the team members ask the female archer: "Do you know him?"

  She subconsciously nodded as she looked at Dudian who was getting closer to the gate they were by. She couldn't help but touch the hilt of the dagger on her leg.

  Because his height was lower that female archer's his angle of sight was enough to see through her little trick. He looked up at her. As long as she dared to pull the dagger an inch, he would immediately take action.

  However, the female archer touched the dagger not to attack but to defent. She was worried that Dudian hated her and would go for revenge. She knew that he was a newbie hunter but his physical strength was not inferior to primary hunter's. Moreover Dudian was able to successfully escape from an intermediate level knight and underwater beasts. This made her heart tense.

  Dudian saw that she didn't have any intention to attack so he passed by and went into the passage.

  After Dudian disappeared into the passage, one-eyed hunter called out to female archer: "You seem to be afraid of him. He is just a newbie hunter. Whats the problem?"

  She was relieved as she saw Dudian leave.: "We still have to find the monster that has leaked into area no 9 as soon as possible."

  Others saw that she avoided answering the question so they didn't ask anything anymore. They went forward to area no 9.
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  ...

  ...

  Dudian returned to the wall. In accordance with the rules, he once again was sent to be kept in place for the hunters.

  "Will they find any problems with my left hand if they check it out?." He had absorbed too much cold crystals. After all, one of the crystals was enough to freeze a human body. It seems he wasn't able to digest all those cold crystals and his left arm ended up frozen. He didn't know if his left arm is the same as undead's. This is what made him little nervous.

  Moreover, he knew that in was not feasible and logical to sneak into the commercial district. The inspection fortress at the border was extremely strict. In addition to the castle set up to check them there was a barrier set up by the military.

  If a hunter wanted to get into commercial district he had to get a qualified mark from the check ups. By the virtue of this logo he would be able to pass the border.

  Dudian washed his body clean with the water, put on clean clothes and sit inside the cage to wait.

  The next day, doctors came for blood test.

  Dudian was tense as he handed out his right hand.

  The blood drops went into the bowl. There was another drop of blood inside it. The moment Dudian's blood was instilled inside the bowl, the other side didn't move but stayed suspended in place. There was no mutual attraction.

  Dudian's heart was relieved as he saw this. He decided to quietly wait for seven days to pass.

  "After returning to commercial district I gotta stay apart from consortium's hunters. I have to climb up to the position of official judge as soon as possible. In the future I can even ascend to the position of deacon or bishop." Dudian was planning his future while sitting aside.

  On the fourth day, the cage was opened again.

  Dudian thought it was the hunters who were back but instead he saw eight people came in. Four of the them were armed apprentice knights of light. The other four were wearing strange armor. They came up to Dudian's cage. A middle-aged man shouted: "Are you Dean?"

  Dudian was startled as he felt a trace of headache coming: "You are?"