Chapter 759 Dark Lord Returns
"No can do," Elder shook his head. He wasn't going to hand over the twins to these people. He may have been cold toward the kids and didn't like to spend time with them, but the kids adored him. His heart simply refused to give the kids to the strangers.
The black-robed figures chuckled. The elf before them was just at the Core Formation level 1. They could kill him without breaking a sweat. Nonetheless, the black-robed figures saw no signs of fear in the elf's eyes. Elmer cracked his neck.
"Kill this fool and take the kids," The black-armored man ordered one of his men, who stood a couple of meters away from Elmer. The black armored figure unsheathed his dagger. He strolled toward Elmer playing with his dagger. The black armored figures expected Elmer to cast a spell or atleast poise to defend himself. Contrary to their expectation, Elmer remained still. The black armored figures thought Elmer had frozen by fear. The black armored figure raised the dagger before plunging it onto Elmer's back. To the man's shock, the dagger shattered into pieces when he stabbed Elmer. His hand went numb. He felt like he stabbed a concrete block.
The man was completely off guard. His eyes widened behind his mask. The trees in the forest swayed as an ominous feeling swept across them. They heard wolves howling in the distance. Thunder rumbled alongside the wolves. Suddenly, the black armored figures saw Elmer's eyes turn completely black. Black bolts of lightning crackled around his body. Slowly, the area around the carriage grew darker and darker. The black armored figures took a step back in fear. They had a bad feeling seeing the darkness around them. Elmer's expressionless face changed. Instead, a devilish grin emerged on his face.
Chill ran down the black armored men's spines. They trembled in utter fear. Suddenly, everything turned completely black for a moment. When the darkness disappeared in a flash, Elmer disappeared from their sight. The men looked around frantically. The forest once again became completely silent.
"Brother Elmer, we are ready. Come find us," the playful voice of the kids cut through the ominous silence,
"Keep hiding kids. I have to clean up a few rodents," the black armored men heard Elmer's voice echo through the forest. However, they couldn't locate him.
"Rodents, eww. We do not want them in here," said the kids.
"I am sure you don't," said Elmer.
The black armored figures unsheathed their weapons. A breeze of wind brushed past them. They didn't even blink. Fear crept into their hearts.
"Where-" a black armored man tried to shout, but his shout was cut short abruptly. His head exploded into red mist. The rest were startled. They had no idea what just happened. Under their shocked gazes, a thin veil of energy appeared around the carriage.
"He…he's dead…what…happened," one of the men stuttered. Everyone trembled to see the blood spewing out of their friend's neck. One moment he was fine, and the next, his head exploded like a watermelon.
Once again, a breeze of wind brushed past them. Following the wind, another head exploded. The black armored man who stood beside the man fell down in shock. Blood splashed across his face and the ground. Yet, they didn't see what just happened. One by one, heads exploded.
"Fuck it," Some dropped everything they had and tried to run into the woods. But a dark beam came out of nowhere and penetrated their heads. They died instantly. Only one survived the quick massacre. The one who survived tried to crawl under the carriage but couldn't go through the energy shield. It was like an invisible wall. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't even move an inch forward.
The man's heart skipped a beat when he saw Elmer behind him. Elmer lifted up the black armored man by his neck.
"Who are you?" the man mumbled. Elmer snatched the mask off of the man's face. After removing the dark mask, a man with a gray stubble beard and brown eyes stared at Elmer. The man b𝚎𝚍𝚗o𝚟𝚎𝚕.c𝚘m
S eyes almost popped out of their sockets as Elmer's face slowly transformed. His pointy ears grew shorter, resembling human ears. The silvery hair turned black. If these weren't shocking enough, Elmer's face itself transformed into resembling someone else. The man recognized his face almost instantly. In fact, everyone in the world would recognize the face because the guardian guild had posted thousands of posters worldwide with his face on.
"Dark…Dark…Lord," The man muttered. He couldn't believe that out of all people, they actually stumbled upon the Dark Lord himself. They were actually ordered to kidnap the kids where the Dark Lord was. The man's mind went blank. Everyone in the world knew how he slaughtered hundreds of guardians, including Immortals before he obliterated Itholan to oblivion.
"What's your name?" asked Michael.
"Thamor," the man mumbled.
It had been a year since Michael took the identity of Elmer, an elf and infiltrated the Genric family. A lot of things have happened since he exacted revenge against Thusia. One of the major things was the system going offline. He upgraded the system from version 7 to 8. To Michael's surprise, the system required an entire year to upgrade itself. But before it went offline, the system required Michael to get his hands on the elven rune in the Genric family without revealing his identity for some reason. To the outside world and his minions, he disappeared and went underground. But in reality, Michael was staying with the Genric family, slowly gaining their trust and working as an amateur alchemist. Only a few knew about Michael's current identity which included Gaya and her mother. While he was living with the Genric family, Gaya and her mother continued the search for the god-killing arrows and his armor pieces.
Michael was so close to getting access to the secret vault, which was protected with all kinds of runes and arrays, that even Elidyr had trouble breaking them. Since the system strictly advised Michael not to reveal himself, he didn't take the risk of letting Elidyr take a crack at the arrays and the runes. Hence, Michael chose the good old ways. To be honest, Michael loved the fresh air. He let his subordinates handle everything back in the Southern continent. The guardians poured all the resources into finding him in the southern continent while Michael lived right under their noses. Plus, he was able to get a good understanding of Awor and Empress Nithroel Grimfield. Unfortunately, because the system went offline, Michael couldn't break through to the Immortal stage. Everything was going great until these assholes decided to ambush him and the two annoying kids. Whoever sent Thamor just made it into Micihael's kill list.
"You know who I am right?" asked Michael.
Thamor bobbed his head up and down.
"So you know what I can do to you and everyone you know and care about?" Michael's eyes glimmered with killing intent. Thamor's heart skipped a beat.
"But I will give you a chance to avoid all that bloodshed. Answer my questions, and I won't kill your loved ones. Do you understand?"
Thamor did not understand as Michael tightened his grip around his neck.
"Do you understand?" Michael's voice became demonic for a moment.
"Yes," Thamor immediately nodded in utter fear.
"Who sent you?" Michael asked the simple and the most obvious questions. Considering his time in the Genric family, he could say the Genric family had no enemies hostile enough to kidnap the twins. A criminal act like this would get them the most brutal punishment there was from the empress herself. The empress was kind and brutal at the same time. Her war gods would go to any lengths to find out the kidnappers and bring them to justice. These war gods were the main reason why Gondolin had so few criminals. But if someone had sent people after the twins to kidnap them despite everything, Michael wanted to know who this daredevil was.
"Hamon…Lord Hamon sent us," Thamor blabbered almost immediately without a second thought. The Dark Lord frightened him more than Hamon ever did.
"That fucking rat. It seems I am not the only one with hidden agendas in Genric family," said Michael.
"Where do you plan to meet Hamon again?"
"In a cabin not very far from here," Thamor answered Michael truthfully.
Luckily for Thamor, Michael saw no signs of him lying. Otherwise, Thamor would be on the ground dead without a head. Finally, after hearing Hamon planned the ambush, Michael wanted to know why. He had a strange feeling that he could use Hamon to speed things up. Michael turned his gaze toward the carriage. With a flick of his wrist, he took out a silvery vial from his space ring. He threw the vial at the carriage as it shattered on the ground. Puffs of white smoke emerged from the broken vial and floated into the carriage.
"Take the kids to Hamon as you planned. If he asks about Elmer, tell Hamon you killed him. Got it?"
Thamor nodded frantically. Michael finally released his grip around his neck as Thamor collapsed down. He coughed several times. The rosiness slowly returned to his face. He picked himself up and slowly walked toward the carriage. When he got close, the energy shield around the carriage faded away.
"Go on," said Michael. Thamor opened the carriage door. To his surprise, the kids were sleeping on the couch. More accurately, they lost consciousness by inhaling Michael's knockout gas. Eventually, Thamor picked up the two kids and returned to Michael.
Michael looked at the twins peacefully sleeping on Thamor's shoulder. He then took out a scroll and tore it in half. Suddenly, several runes materialized in the air.
"We are free to fly to the cabin," said Michael.
Thamor led Michael through the woods toward Hamon's cabin. He didn't dare to utter a word or try to lose the Dark Lord. He knew messing with the Dark Lord would only lead to his death. Thamor just wanted this nightmare to end.. He had already lost his men and did not want to lose his life too,
On the other hand, Hamon was waiting for good news inside his cabin. Little did he know the Dark Lord was coming to greet him.