Chapter 305 Piss And Mildew
The woman was lashing out at the half-wolf tirelessly, looking for a way to try to hurt him. However, it seemed the more she slashed, the easier it became for him to predict her next move.
Several times, she swung toward his abdomen, aiming for a dirty, fatal blow. For her, this was the best way to end a fight against a stronger opponent, maybe she had a lucky moment among so many attempts and managed to hit Luke, it was like a chance in a million, however, she still had to try.
Although to the spy it appeared that Luke was playing with her, as he was only dodging and not attacking her, the truth was much more technical. The way she held the knife and slashed was strange to the half-wolf, a bit disorderly, which confused the <Eye of Horus>'s senses. Soon, he realized that this sporadic way of attacking was not because of her nervousness, but appeared to be more of a technique.
In the midst of such a mess, there was order in the way she wielded the knife, so Luke was wanting to learn about that a bit.
After dozens of stabbing attempts within seconds, the spy gasped and recoiled. "You're… strong… I can't go easy on you." she stated.
"It doesn't matter how many times you try to kill me, hundreds or thousands. The result will still be the same, haven't you noticed that?" Luke ran his left hand over the cut caused by the blade the spy had just thrown.
The blood from the wound was already dried and his flesh completely healed.
As the mystery woman still hadn't noticed that her one hit had not had positive results, she was stunned to see Luke's healed right shoulder.
'Has he already healed? That cut happened just seconds ago... Shit, maybe he's a corrupted one too.' She thought.
In order to perhaps create an identification with the opponent, the woman removed the long black bush she was wearing, revealing the clothes of a real assassin, with very dark clothes and few metal details, which did not harm her stealth. The sleeves of the jacket, which she wore under her cloak, were turned up a little, and on each of her wrists were a pair of spikes the size of her thumbs.
'So she really is a corrupted one.'
Luke was already expecting something like this, after all it was very unusual to find people who had the speed that this woman proved to have. Besides, this spy had the same rotten smell as Wanney and the corrupted regions.
'That doesn't change anything. I still need to know why she was near my room.'
When Luke was about to ask again the question about who she was, the spy raised her right arm and pointed only her index finger at Luke. Black particles came out of her fingernails, and then that finger began to necrose.
[Luke, dodge this now!] The Scale screamed in the half-wolf's mind, startling him.
Suddenly, the mystery woman's finger exploded into hundreds of pieces and a black flesh sphere was flung towards the half-wolf. The force of this skill was so overwhelming that it set the entire area of the corridor through which it passed into black flames, as well as causing the hotel's foundation to shake.
'Huh!? Were you watching me this whole time?' Luke asked the scale in his mind, completely indignant even in that tight moment.
[That doesn't matter! Come on, dodge it!]
'Damn... are you sure you can really see all the probabilities of the future?' He provoked her.
His face quite flushed at the thought that the Scale watched his sex with Meredith without saying an A, he calmly raised his left arm and uttered,
"<Gluttony>!"
Before even touching the half-wolf, the large sphere was compressed, becoming a cylinder that in moments simply disappeared. As this was such a powerful attack, Luke felt pain as he absorbed it, the muscles in his arm were strained to the limit and the blood circulating in his veins nearly boiled. <Gluttony> was not a costless skill, and the price of absorbing each skill was for Luke's own body, which was already worn out from within.
The spy broke into a cold sweat as her most powerful ability was fully nullified.
Luke stretched his left shoulder as he finished using <Gluttony>. The impact was strong and the damage to his body was greater than he expected, but Luke was calm because he managed to avoid the worst. He couldn't tell what might have happened if he hadn't had <Gluttony>.
As he stretched, Luke looked at the mystery woman seriously. "That was your final card, your ace, wasn't it?" He questioned her.
Completely in shock at having sacrificed one of her fingers for nothing, she dropped to her knees on the floor. This was the answer the half-wolf had been waiting for.
Luke looked around in the hallway and realized that the structural damage he was avoiding doing was, in the end, done by someone else's skill. It was impossible for the half-wolf to tell, with what little knowledge he had on the subject, what kind of skill or magic the spy used. He certainly didn't see a magic circle, but he also didn't hear the woman utter anything, and she didn't make any apparent special gestures either.
It reminded Luke of a conversation he had with Wanney about the relationship between Corruption and man.
In that conversation, Wanney said he didn't know exactly what the role of corruption was. Of course, he knew he could converse and control various species of monsters with this power, like a kind of hypnosis mixed with pain control, but the Corrupted's powers weren't limited to just controlling demons.
Since then, Luke was very interested in this subject. He approached the woman who was on her knees and questioned, "Does the Imperial Melki Army know that a trained officer is so far from the front lines?"
The Corrupted were a select group of officers, and if Luke was right about her being a Corrupted, it would save him from having to search the city.
Hair falling in front of her face, head down, the woman chose to answer all questions bluntly. However, the moment she opened her mouth to speak, she heard a loud cracking sound. As she lifted her head to look at Luke, she saw him falling to her side.
Confused and surprised by what had happened in the blink of an eye, she watched him fall flat on his chest without saying. Luke fell hard as a stone, completely unconscious. Then she looked at the shadow that had struck the half-wolf and the flames of the lamps in the hall lit up the face of a red-haired woman.
Meredith was the one standing before the woman holding a piece of wood broken in half, which she dropped on the floor.
"Why did you help me? Who are you?" The spy asked Meredith.
"It doesn't matter what my name is. I just want to use this man as an offering to Sakan. You're a Sakan faithful, aren't you?"
The half-fox's words initially made the corrupted woman smile, and that smile quickly turned into hysterical laughter.
The spy couldn't believe how lucky she was, how ironic fate was.
In fact, she had already accepted death when she fell to her knees before Luke, because if she said anything to Luke, she died, and if she didn't, she died at his hands. In other words, Meredith was a savior for her, an unlikely heroine, to whom she owed her life.
*
When Luke opened his eyes, he didn't know exactly where he was. Everything was quite dark and silent. The resulting odor of the mixture of piss and mold in the place where he was slowly helped him to regain a faint consciousness.
For the first few seconds, it was hard to overcome the confused feeling of stun. The pain from the blow to his head was still throbbing.
Gradually he noticed that the place he was in had stone brick walls, a damp floor, and iron railings. It was definitely a prison, or worse, because it was so silent and dark, he was probably in a dungeon prision.
Bracing himself against the wall with his right hand to get up, Luke looked past the bars of the cell he was in. There were a few other saddles in place in the dungeon as well, however, they were completely empty. At this point, he took a deep breath, not looking the least bit surprised.
Suddenly, a familiar voice invaded his saddle. "Were you betrayed by your mate, half-wolf?" Hazor asked from the other side of the fence.
Luke snapped the chain that held his left leg rather easily and looked at Hazor. "No, I arranged all this with her. We had a mission to steal the cursed item, and as we realized from the beginning that there was something wrong with this city, we decided to test something unusual."
Hazor was quiet for a moment. "That was a smart move, very shrewd on your part."
He clearly wasn't expecting Luke to go so far as to use himself as a way to find members of the Sakan religion.
"By the way, how are you here? You had told me you couldn't get off that mountain." Luke confronted him.
"I lied. I just wanted to use you to confirm the rumor about this town was true, and apparently I did." replied Hazor, with enviable normality.
Eyes closed in disappointment and disbelief, Luke twisted the bars of the railing with his bare hands and opened a space for him to slip through.