Chapter 1013

Several minutes passed in a suffocating silence as Grey stared at the ships, their numbers increasing by the second.

Five minutes to be exact, and by now, over ninety vessels had already appeared in the open sky.

He had lost count a short while back.

The town around him was now completely silent. He could feel the stampede of the fleeing townspeople miles away from his position.

Though he could no longer see them, his connection to the earth attribute allowed him to perceive their frantic vibrations through the soil.

He waited in the clearing, the area immediately surrounding him now totally vacant.

Glancing backward, he caught sight of a building a few meters away.

Specifically, seven meters away.

His gaze lingered on the structure longer than it logically should have, the weight of the past anchoring him to the spot for a brief moment.

Then, another thunderous roar of mechanical engines snapped his focus away.

He turned back toward the sky to see that well over a hundred ships were now hovering in the air.

Finally, from the depths of the same wormhole, a much more elegant yet still enormously imposing flying ship emerged with steady, unhurried movements.

This immediately caught Grey’s attention as he spotted the glaring differences between this new arrival and the previous vessels.

While the other ships that had been pouring through were an ordinary brown color, this specific craft was a striking mixture of obsidian and dark red.

The black hue was so absolute that it seemed to absorb light itself rather than reflecting it.

The crimson designs etched across the hull looked disturbingly realistic, as if fresh blood had just been spilled across the surface, giving the entire vessel an eerie, biological feel.

He didn’t need to be told.

He could see it, and he could certainly feel it.

This was the flagship belonging to the leadership of the Otherworlders.

And his instincts were entirely correct.

On the deck of the vessel, he could discern a few individuals standing and almost leaning against the railing while looking down at him.

He couldn’t make out their facial features, as their countenances were entirely obscured by the same chilling masks.

The mask was a void of expression, crafted from an obsidian-like material that devoured light, making it seem as if the wearer’s face had been entirely erased from existence.

Strange, ancient runes pulsed along its surface, shifting like whispering voices trapped beneath the black shell.

A twisted, elongated grin stretched far too wide to be human, frozen in a sinister mockery of laughter.

Its hollow eye sockets were endless pits of darkness, and from within, faint embers glowed like dying stars.

Wisps of black mist curled from the edges, slithering through the air as though the mask itself breathed.

He could see six... no, seven figures on this singular ship that looked distinctly different from the rest of the crew.

These individuals were all of varying shapes and sizes.

One of them possessed quite a bulky frame, and beneath the folds of his dark robes, Grey could see...

Squinting harder to pierce the distance, his eyes narrowed.

... Was that scales and fur?

’So these are the twel... uh... Zodiacs? Aren’t they supposed to be twelve?’ Grey wondered inwardly, his brows knitting tightly together.

’... I took down Lower Zodiac Eleven after he killed my mum. I took down Upper Zodiac Five... that’s two accounted for, right? Okay... the Midnight Sun Clan was wiped out totally, and according to Orion, Upper Zodiac Four was stationed there.

But I doubt he would be the only one present, so let’s say one more Zodiac was alongside number four. That’s potentially four Zodiacs down...’

He began rubbing his temples, lost in deep, calculative thought as the massive armada cast its long shadow over his birth town.

’... There was an attack on Arondale and according to the Emperor, two Zodiacs led the assault, and those two were the ones who put him in the condition he is in at the moment. So that’s a total of six down. Oh...’

He chuckled inwardly at the absurdity of the situation now.

’They dealt us quite the blow and also received the same in return. Shocking.’

His gaze then narrowed as the obsidian vessel floated in front of the others, while the wormhole refused to close.

’So it means that one of these six is Vince. Oh! Wait! Orion had escaped from my clutches that day, right? Which means he is part of these six too.’

Grey’s brows tightened as he flashed back to the brutal battle in the coliseum.

’This will be bad. The last time, even with all my power-ups and allies, we were barely able to beat him. He escaped with his life barely intact. And from what I’m seeing, it seems he is fully healed and surely holds a grudge.’

Then his gaze drifted back to the Zodiacs, and he noted a certain figure that stood in their midst.

His composure and posture were impeccable, carrying an odd aura that Grey’s sharp observation quickly picked apart.

Even though it looked like the leaders were standing together, he could see a distinct gap; the six stood slightly away from the seventh man, as if they didn’t want to get close at all.

It was almost like they wanted to run away from him.

Only the Zodiac who possessed the strange scales... or fur didn’t have that hesitant aura.

Looking closer, he noted that the central figure wore a mask much different from the six around him.

The mask the figure wore was chilling in its design.

It had horns carved onto it like that of a devil, curling backward with the tips pointing downward.

Fangs jutted out from the mouth area, pointing down with gleaming intensity.

The artifact shared the exact color and design as the flagship they were on: obsidian as a base with a splatter of crimson, like fresh blood.

It covered the figure’s head totally, shielding his hair from view, which made the horns stand gallantly as if they truly belonged to him.

’So that’s the leader of this blasted organization, huh....’ Grey’s thoughts slithered as he glared at the figure with a deep hatred that wasn’t about to be calmed down.

’... An original mage.’

With a blink, Grey was stunned as the figure he was staring at suddenly vanished from view, like he hadn’t been there to begin with.

Snapping his head downward away from the ship immediately, he could now see the man standing on the ground with a cool, confident posture, as if he had always been standing there.

’Teleportation? And a high-level one too?!’