Chapter 196: Misdirection

Chapter 196: Misdirection

By this point, Klein had roughly understood what had happened.

Due to the law of Beyonder characteristic convergence, he had been targeted by this Spirit World Plunderer the moment he entered Calderón’s outer region, where not even normal undead existed. First, it had moved the golden disc from some unknown place beside the route it had predicted he would take, allowing him to see it through his marionette and thus shift his attention to Calderón’s transformation of living beings. Then, it had made use of the giant blacksmith, which was not one of its divided souls, further lulling him into carelessness. Finally, it had silently crept within his range of control and succeeded with a single “strike.”

“If I hadn’t seen those dead hanging like wind chimes inside the small church, if I didn’t have an instinctive fear of high-sequence Beyonders of the Seer pathway, and if I hadn’t prepared several ways to interrupt control on my own without anyone’s help, I would already have become one of the Spirit World Plunderer’s divided souls…

“Honestly, before entering, I should already have thought of the law of Beyonder characteristic convergence… After picking up Sea God Scepter, even with the Tyrant card suppressing it, I was still a little too reckless. I actually overlooked such an important detail…

“On the surface, I did remain as cautious as ever, but in reality, I had unknowingly become reckless—without even realizing it myself…”

As his thoughts raced, Klein once again raised the arm holding the white bone scepter, intending to continue using Lightning Storm for wide-range attacks.

If once was not enough, then twice. If twice was not enough, then three times. In short, he would seize this chance and not allow the Spirit World Plunderer to escape his field of fire.

This was the safest method and also Klein’s most respected fighting style. If lightning strikes had not been weakened considerably inside Calderón, he even suspected he could already go pick up the Beyonder characteristic.

And with more than half of his Sequence 5 potion already digested, his spirituality was still sufficient to sustain him for a while.

At that moment, however, pale flames suddenly ignited on the surface of the “invisible person” wearing the semi-transparent white robe. Several hundred meters away, a similar stream of fire leapt upward into the air.

Using a Flame Jump far more powerful than Klein’s by an unknown margin, the Spirit World Plunderer instantly pulled open the distance.

At the same time, from the rubble where it had originally been hiding, a four-meter-tall bluish-black giant staggered to its feet.

The giant’s chest and abdomen gaped open. Its internal organs were gone, yet it stood like a mountain and a fortress between the “Tyrant” and the Spirit World Plunderer, blocking every line of sight.

In Klein’s eyes, the giant’s Spirit Body Threads had gathered together and were all stretching toward the distant Spirit World Plunderer. One glance was enough to tell that it was a divided soul.

At the tip of Sea God Scepter, a blue-green gemstone lit up. Several bolts of lightning leapt out of thin air, intertwined into a bundle, and transformed into a gigantic silver-white arrow that instantly struck the bluish-black giant’s head.

All invisible defenses shattered at once, like paper. The giant’s head broke apart, turning into countless charred chunks of flesh that splattered in all directions. From the now headless body, pale gas tinged with specks of gloomy green steamed and dissipated, carrying away all vitality.

All this happened in the blink of an eye. Klein, wearing the triple crown and papal vestments, raised the white bone scepter in his hand even higher.

Rings of blue-green light rippled outward, and the sound of wind blew up his cape.

Over a large portion of Calderón’s outer region, dark clouds rapidly gathered and pressed down layer after layer, making this place seem even gloomier and more oppressive.

Pitter-patter!

Raindrops the size of soybeans struck the ground one after another, splashing up a little dust accumulated by time.

Crash!

The rain grew faster and denser, becoming a disastrous downpour.

The rainwater extinguished clusters of pale flames and gathered into streams. They surged downward, heading straight for the lowest point of the entire city, straight for the end of the underground pit.

In this weather, Klein’s Flame Jump was directly crippled, and so was the Spirit World Plunderer’s.

However, for the “Tyrant,” his spirituality spread outward through the dark clouds, as if he had become a deity looking down over the earth.

Every cloud, every raindrop, became Klein’s eyes, allowing him to easily locate the Spirit World Plunderer within the region where the weather had changed.

The “invisible person” in the semi-transparent white robe was currently hiding behind a broken pale pillar. It had not gone far from the outer region, nor had it entered the core zone.

Boom!

A deafening peal of thunder sounded. One bolt of lightning after another intertwined into a silver-white beam, rushing out from the dark clouds and shooting toward the Spirit World Plunderer.

Relying on its extremely powerful spiritual premonition, the “invisible person” drilled into the ground half a second in advance.

One, two, three—thick silver-white beams densely struck that area, melting the soil and creating a scorched pit that caved downward.

The Spirit World Plunderer emerged from another side and hurriedly darted toward a different hiding place. Sometimes it veered right, sometimes left, moving like a swimming snake.

Yet wherever it fled, silver-white lightning beams could always catch up, even blocking its path in advance. Its plan to leave the region of heavy rain was repeatedly crushed.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The “deity” gazing down at the Spirit World Plunderer from within the dark clouds seemed like a true Tyrant, swinging a silver-white scepter and striking at the target again and again. Several times, the attack almost succeeded.

Klein grew increasingly anxious, wishing he could end the hunt immediately. Without holding anything back, he urged Sea God Scepter on, making lightning descend more and more frequently.

Suddenly, he felt a wave of intense exhaustion.

This jolted Klein awake, and he discovered something wrong.

At the beginning, the Spirit World Plunderer clearly had a chance to retreat into Calderón’s lower regions, so why had it lingered nearby?

It was obviously a spirit world creature without a physical body. It could drill underground to avoid lightning and evade the gaze of the “Tyrant,” so why did it still dart out from time to time and circle around?

It was baiting me into attacking. From my Spirit Body Threads and the details of my marionette control, it realized that my own level has not yet reached demigod, and it wants to exhaust my spirituality! Klein was horrified. Combined with the initial encounter, he finally gained a true and vivid understanding that the Spirit World Plunderer was an intelligent and extremely cunning creature.

At the same time, he thought of another problem.

Would the previous Lightning Storms and the dark clouds and heavy rain draw the attention of dangerous existences in Calderón’s core region?

Far too reckless. I keep overlooking crucial details… As these thoughts flickered, Klein withdrew Sea God Scepter.

The torrential rain stopped immediately. The dark clouds in midair rapidly dispersed, and the surrounding weather returned to normal.

Klein then had his marionette Enzo return to his side while holding the Sea’s Word cane. Together with Hell Admiral Ludwell, the two marionettes stood to his left and right, protecting him inside their formation.

Immediately afterward, one man and two marionettes walked step by step toward the entrance area, as though wishing to leave Calderón while his spirituality still had some reserves.

During this process, Klein kept his Spirit Body Thread vision activated to guard against the Spirit World Plunderer approaching.

Earlier, he had noticed that this creature’s Spirit Body Threads were very distinctive. Some drilled out from its body and extended outward normally, while some came from outside, gathered into thick bundles, and burrowed into the semi-transparent white robe.

Klein suspected this was the Spirit World Plunderer’s state when it controlled its divided souls, different from a Marionettist.

As his gaze moved, he suddenly saw, inside a collapsed house, illusory black threads emerging one after another. Some gathered into a thick bundle, their source seemingly far away.

Without hesitation, Klein slightly lifted Sea God Scepter and created a tremendous peal of thunder out of thin air.

Boom!

Amid the sound that shook heart and spirit, Hell Admiral Ludwell abruptly raised his left hand.

Half of his body instantly turned illusory. His upper arm and forearm stretched endlessly, reaching toward that collapsed house.

Along the way, his palm became abnormally pale. A vague face protruded from it, spitting out a tongue like a snake’s fork, its surface covered with white fur.

The tongue shot an enormous distance, passed through the wall, and pierced into the place where the Spirit Body Threads gathered, directly sucking out a twisted, blurry soul.

Around that soul, some of the Spirit Body Threads abruptly vanished, as if they had never existed at all.

Those were precisely the thick bundles that had come from far away.

They were fake!

The Spirit World Plunderer could actually forge false Spirit Body Threads, or instantly swap the positions of its divided soul and main soul!

Klein snapped his head around and looked elsewhere. As expected, he saw another clump of Spirit Body Threads speeding toward him from underground.

He used Sea God Scepter once again, causing thunder capable of shaking spirits to explode against the ground.

At the same time, Winner Enzo consumed part of his remaining luck, inflicting misfortune upon the target, and made the tip of the Sea’s Word cane shoot out a bolt of silver-white lightning.

That lightning was exceptionally lucky. It passed through a crack, entered the earth, and struck the attacker directly, causing some of its Spirit Body Threads to vanish on the spot.

This one was fake as well!

Just as Klein reacted, his thoughts suddenly stalled, and numbness spread through his body.

As his mouth opened with difficulty, seemingly about to order his mystical items to act, the “invisible person” in the semi-transparent robe suddenly descended from the sky and landed before him.

The Spirit World Plunderer had actually been hiding high in the sky the entire time, using the gray-white clouds to conceal itself.

The instant the “invisible person” appeared, one transparent worm after another crawled out from the collar where its head should have been. The surface of every worm was covered in strange patterns.

Klein had only taken one glance when the thoughts in his mind completely exploded. Although he broke free from the control originating from his Spirit Body Threads, he also lost all ability to think.

On the face hidden beneath the shadow of his triple crown, tiny flesh buds protruded one after another. Each was slightly transparent, like a wriggling little worm.

If not for the status of the Tyrant card supporting him, he would already have fallen to the ground in agony, rolling and struggling.

The Spirit World Plunderer actually possessed a partial mythical creature form!

At this moment, only then did the “invisible person” inside the white robe truly begin to control Klein’s Spirit Body Threads without obstruction. In the span of a few seconds, it was already close to succeeding.

Seeing that its prey was about to become its divided soul, the Spirit World Plunderer suddenly saw the other party open his mouth with difficulty and spit out a single word.

He recovered from the state of being near losing control earlier than it had anticipated. The word was an ancient Hermes word:

“Fate!”

This was the activation incantation for the Luck Stealer charm.

If Klein had truly wanted to retreat, he would long since have grabbed his two marionettes, ended the summoning directly, and returned above the gray fog instead of inching step by step toward Calderón’s entrance.

He had been setting a trap for the Spirit World Plunderer!

The reason he could recover so quickly from the trauma of seeing a partial mythical creature form and timely pronounce that word was because he had experienced such things far too many times. And although he did not know what method the other party would use, there was one response that was broadly effective in most situations: make the target unlucky.

When Klein had first entered that sluggish state, his first reaction had not been to order his mystical items to sing, but to have Winner Enzo consume all of his remaining luck, making the Spirit World Plunderer sufficiently unfortunate.