Chapter 177: The Hunter
The felines didn’t show any reaction at all to the news that the other five were dead, and Alpha didn’t expect them to either. Death was something they were all used to in their line of work. Sometimes people died because they didn’t think properly before going on a mission, or because they attacked someone that was just far too strong for them to handle. There were even those who died out of sheer bad luck. And Alpha didn’t really care about what caused the death of the five phantoms. The only thing that mattered now was making sure that the mission was complete!
The felines nodded in agreement to Alpha’s orders, and Alpha told them to leave and get ready. They were expected to start immediately. The felines quickly left the tent, and Alpha sighed harshly as she considered her next course of action.
....
On the other side of the Phantom hideout, a few hundred meters away from the campsite, a Dimensional Tear tore open across the air and five figures appeared from inside it. The five dead Phantoms looked around the region curiously, and it wasn’t long before they heard a voice coming from in front of them.
"Hey, you’re back."
The shadow in front of them bulged and a figure appeared from inside it. It was a woman who wore a white mask over her face. She had on the same black outfit as the others, as well as the sais that were attached at her hips, but there was also a long katana attached behind her. She was one of the lookouts in charge of ensuring there were no ambushes on their campsite, and she had been waiting here since the five left on their mission so that she could report back once they arrived.
The woman looked at all five of them with a curious look on her face and she raised a brow behind her mask when she noticed that there was something off about them. It felt like they were a lot more intimidating than they had been the last time she saw them and she could also feel a lot more mana coming off their bodies! The woman decided not to think too much about that for now and she hummed when none of them spoke.
"Is everything okay? Did something happen with the mission?"
The woman immediately thought that they had failed the mission. It was the only reason she could think of for them to be looking so emotionless. Every Phantom knew what Alpha would do to anyone who failed a mission! Coming back without completing the mission would be no different from signing your death warrant!
But rather than getting an answer from them, the woman was surprised when one of them immediately charged towards her! She took a step back in shock and reached for her sai! She was a B Rank who was confident in her speed, so it was easy for her to pull her sai and stab it forward into the man’s neck! But instead of the man going down, he continued forward and grabbed her! Her eyes widened in shock when she didn’t see any blood leaking from the wound, and before she could do anything, two other men grabbed her as well! The woman was strong, but she couldn’t do anything against three B Ranks holding her down and she was easily disarmed!
Another figure began to emerge from the Dimensional Tear and Jason stepped into the new world with a calm, calculative look on his face. His eyes looked over the terrain in front of him before he finally glanced down at the Phantom being held down by his subordinates. Jason knew that killing a Phantom would immediately alert the leader to his presence, so he told his subordinates not to kill her yet. The time for killing would come, but first Jason was going to make sure that there were no escape routes the Phantoms could use to get away.
The Phantom campsite was located at the bottom of a valley, and there were tall walls and mountains blocking easy access to it. Jason planned to turn this valley into a fucking prison.
The system’s explanation of the [Wandering Shadow] skill told Jason everything that he needed to know to make this plan work. The skill worked by taking advantage of the shadows that light cast on a solid object. That meant that if there was too much light or too much darkness, then the skill would not work, and anyone who tried to get into the shadow would immediately be repelled. Jason was going to use this to his advantage.
Jason called on every single subordinate that he had with him, and all four hundred and seventy-four of them began to emerge from his Alternate Dimension! The female Phantom that was still being held down by the Phantom subordinates felt her eyes widen in fear at the sight of all the monsters, and she began to thrash about as she tried to get away from there! But the other Phantoms held her down and made sure she wasn’t going anywhere!
Jason raised a finger and rotated it around the campsite below, and he watched as the wolves, Adamantine Ants, and Spider monkeys began to run in both directions to surround the campsite. The Phantoms who were on lookout were the first ones to notice the sudden movement and they all emerged from the shadows curiously and watched as the monsters surrounded them. Some of them immediately fell back into the shadows and went to report to Alpha while the others stayed back and continued watching to see what the monsters were going to do.
Jason ignored them all and instead focused his mana on the next part of his plan.
[Black Fog] has been activated.
Jason put his hand out toward the campsite and unleashed his mana in a wave of power that emerged as a fog of pure darkness.
The skill [Black Fog] was one of the most versatile skills that Jason received from any of his subordinates recently. It once belonged to Ricardo Santos, and Ricardo had used it in a way that made him one of the most feared assassins back on Earth. The fog blocked out all the senses of whoever it covered, and only the person who created it and those he permitted to would be able to use their senses. The only limit it had was the fact that someone who was sufficiently strong enough would be able to overpower the fog’s power using their own mana, but Jason didn’t have to worry about something like that here because he knew that none of the Phantoms were stronger than A Rank.
Since the fog was pure mana, the radius that you could cover depended greatly on the amount of mana that you had. Ricardo had been an A rank when he died, and he had about 1500 units of mana. With that much mana, he was able to cover up to 1 km in total radius using his fog, and in that radius, no one would be able to hear, see, smell, or touch anything. But things were completely different now that Jason was the one using the Fog. As an S-rank Necromancer, not only did Jason possess more mana than Ricardo, but Jason also possessed all the mana that he had gained from all the subordinates that he had resurrected.
And when they were all combined together, they gave Jason well over twenty-eight thousand units of mana! That was more than eighteen times the amount that Ricardo had! And in this one moment, Jason was determined to use every ounce of mana at his disposal to ensure that every single Phantom died in this valley!
The [Black Fog] slowly rolled over the valley like a blanket! The Phantoms that had been in the tents as well as those that were sitting around the fire stood up in surprise when they saw the black fog washing over them! The attack was so sudden that none of them were able to figure out what was happening before they were consumed by the fog, and by the time they were inside it, it was already too late!