The Devil’s Cage

The bike Beck rode on was accelerating to its maximum speed.

It was originally a modified motorcycle, hence it sped off like an arrow let loose and easily reached lightning speed.

However, Beck felt it was still too slow for him.

He wished he could fly over to his destination right away but he didn’t possess the ability to do so.

“Soon, I will have the abilities too!”

Beck’s heart was burning whenever he thought about his future.

Who was willing to be appendage?

Who was willing to be enslaved?

Who didn’t want to become God, standing above all humans?

So was it wrong for him to take a little risk to make his wish come true?

As for the betrayal?

Beck never served Great Swamp willingly from the start, how was it considered betrayal?

Other than that, soon he would be an existence that was on equal footing with Great Swamp.

Why he has to be apologetic now?

It wasn’t necessary!

What he needed to do was welcome his own glory!

Of course, before that could happen, he still needed a little bit of cover-up.

Tsss!

Amidst the sharp breaking noise from the bike, it was stopped abruptly and a burning rubber stench filled the air. From the accelerated sprint to a sudden hard break, the momentum threw Beck off the bike.

Beck did a full flip in mid-air and landed in front of the gray “man”‘s figure. He didn’t even care about his bike that flew off the road, crashing into a wall and exploding.

Although a short while before this, he claimed that the bike was his favorite.

“Your Majesty.”

Beck saluted to Jin respectfully as though he was saluting to Great Swamp.

“I’ll lead the way.”

Beck took the initiative to walk in front even without Jin’s reply.

The place he landed was the edge of the outskirts of Flame City.

There were many citizens who lived here and there were many shops around as well. Although it wasn’t as prosperous and as busy as the city center, crowds still shuttled the streets during the day.

But now?

It was the darkest moment before dawn where most people were still asleep or pretending to be asleep.

Everyone knew how to protect themselves from the explosion in the middle of the night.

It was natural that some bold, curious men didn’t hold back their curiosity but a lot more of them chose to call the police.

To their surprise, the phone call to the station couldn’t get through.

In fact, not only the phone, even the electricity around the city seemed to have disappeared.

The street lamps were going off one by one, darkness descended on the area.

Amidst the deep darkness, the walking gray “man” figure incited the most primitive fear in the people’s hearts in an unusual way.

Those bold, curious citizens were shaken right away. Each of them returned to their own room and shivered under the blanket and yet it only increased their fear.

A heavy gloomy smile suddenly came out from the gray “man”‘s mouth as though a gloomy wind blew.

He was feeling the fear around him; He was also enjoying the fear to the fullest, to the point that he couldn’t help but halted his steps for a deep breath.

Huu!

A violent wind rose.

As the wind roared loudly, the citizens shivering under their blankets started to freeze and were eventually devoid of breath. Translucent figures were dragged out of their bodies and were sucked into the gray “man”‘s nose.

The whole process happened within a second.

When the wind stopped, the gray “man” heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

“Delicious.”

After the comment, he signaled Beck to continue on and Beck ventured forward again.

Beck didn’t mind nor was he unhappy about the actions of the person behind him, he maintained his smile throughout the process.

It wasn’t an act though, the smile came from the bottom of his heart.

In Beck’s eyes, the scene was nothing but normal.

The weak shall serve the strong.

The weak shall contribute to the strong.

It was the law of the jungle and was unquestioned.

If one didn’t wish to be enslaved and raided, become strong!

Never stop becoming stronger, by any means necessary!

Being weak, was worse than the cardinal sins.

“Soon, I will be free of this sin!”

With the thoughts in his heart, Beck led the gray “man” down a street and into an alleyway beside it. He pushed open the rusty abandoned door.

There were multiple bodies with various poses behind the door, some were sitting, some were lying down.

Those who guarded the rusty door were obviously the elites among the elites in Flame City. Among them were many half-fiend powerhouses and yet all of them died silently under that one breath from the gray “man”. Until the very last moment, the guards didn’t know what happened to them.

Power!

It was power!

Beck’s breath couldn’t help but slow down.

The burning gaze flashed over his eyes for an instant as he maintained his pace into the door.

There was a long and narrow corridor leading down with thousands of flights of stairs.

The duo ventured forward without a doubt.

When they reached the very end, a stone gate with the carvings of the dragon-snake like creature blocked them.

“Your Majesty, the biggest node of the earth veins is behind this door. All you need to do is push the gate open and you will find it,” Beck turned around and reported in a respectful tone.

Without an answer, the gray “man” strode forward to the stone gate. After sizing it up and down, he raised his hand to push the door open.

Beck couldn’t hold back his smile.

He did it!

The node of the earth veins was indeed here!

But it wasn’t behind the door… It was the door!

In simple words, whosoever pushed open the door would be destroyed by the node of the earth veins.

Under normal situation, destroying the node will cause an unimaginably catastrophic effect on Flame City but the one who broke the node would be spared of any influence.

That was under normal situation though. If a certain secret mystical technique was used to turn a certain point in the process, the destructive, catastrophic effect would be diverted to the person who pushed the door open.

So, even if the person was a God, he would be more suffering than he could handle.

Beck couldn’t have destroyed the node around alone, but he could give his advice to the one who could.

Great Swamp has always been open towards suggestion from his men.

“Thank you for your mercy!” Beck mocked in his heart.

In his point of view, the strong never needed to listen to the weak for any advice, similar to how the strong should be ruthless against the weak and rule them with absolute power.

The palm was getting near, it was almost at the stone gate.

However, before the palm truly touched the stone gate, it stopped.

“Do you really think I’m an idiot?”

Cold words entered Beck’s ears.

Beck was stunned, he was lifted up in the air without even reacting and was slammed into the stone gate.

“NOOO!”

Becka shouted in horror.

He knew what would befall him had he crashed into the stone gate.

He would be obliterated! Destroyed beyond ashes!

However, his shout didn’t change the outcome.

BANG!

He crashed onto the stone gate as expected and was turned into a pile of meat paste by the tremendous force.

Yet the stone gate didn’t budge.

“No matter how strong a turtle shell is, it is just a turtle shell!

Amidst the cold, disdainful laughter, Jin, Perforation Sting’s leader, raised his hand and smashed the gate without minding the blood and flesh.

KABOOM!

The explosion that sounded like 10 tons of explosives destroyed the stone gate.

However, Jin was sent flying backward by the force and landed hard on the ground.

His gray wind shell broke and revealed his gaze of disbelief.

He saw Great Swamp behind the destroyed gate and there was another stone gate behind Great Swamp.

What the hell happened?

Questions rose in Jin’s heart rapidly.