The 'Trickmaster' that Odis defeated last week, and Chipman, who later pursued Odis, belonged to a Beyonder organization called the 3N Party...
This organization had three leaders, and Chipman, who was a highly skilled fighter, was one of them.
The one leading the attack on 'Lelouch' today was another leader named Selt. The brown-haired man who had earlier interrogated Simon is one of his subordinate.
Selt watched as Lelouch entered his home, and soon a gas lamp was lit inside.
After waiting a while longer, the gas lamp went out, following which, Selt waved his hand and quickly led three armed subordinates to the front door.
One of the subordinates kicked the door open. Selt charged in first, but the moment he stepped inside, his foot met empty air, and he immediately began to fall.
Fortunately, Selt reacted quickly; twisting his waist mid-air, he half-turned and grabbed the doorframe. With a strong pull from his arms and the help of his subordinates pulling him from outside, he managed to get back outside.
Selt looked back inside. The floor inside the door appeared normal, with no sign of a trap. Even if there had been a trap, it should have been triggered and broken by now, and there should be obvious signs of collapse...
He asked his subordinates, "What did you see just now?"
He found it strange that his spiritual intuition hadn't sensed any danger.
One of his subordinates, Ford, said, "I saw you suddenly drop down into the floor."
"Dropped into the floor?" Selt, a man in his late twenties with short hair, pondered this for a moment. He took a triangular spike from one of his subordinates and stabbed it into the floor in front of the doorway.
The spike sank into the floor, but Selt felt like he hadn't hit anything solid.
"This is a strange trap," he said. He prodded the spike around the area a few more times and soon felt solid flooring just a bit further ahead.
After confirming this repeatedly, Selt sneered, "A cheap trick. Jump over it!"
Worried that Lelouch might jump out a window and escape, Selt took the lead again, leaping forcefully into the room and landing steadily.
He then hurried toward the staircase, intending to catch Lelouch before he manages to escape.
"Ahh!"
Suddenly, a startled cry rang out from behind. Selt turned around just in time to see Ford falling into the floor!
By now, Selt was already in the center of the living room, far from the doorway. At this point, no one dared to move, afraid that there might be traps ahead of them as well.
Another of Selt's subordinates, Fitzgear, said with a slight tremble in his voice, "This place is f*cking haunted!"
As if to match his words, a cold breeze suddenly blew through the empty living room, and faint sobbing sounds seemed to whisper in their ears.
Selt realized that this trap was not simple, and the atmosphere around them was clearly off.
"Retreat the way we came," he ordered, intending to simply set the place on fire to force Lelouch out.
As they retreated, a bloody hand suddenly extended from the floor, startling the three Beyonders. Then another reached out.
For Beyonders, ordinary ghosts weren't particularly frightening, and with a clear mind, Selt realized this wasn't a ghost.
"It's Ford!" He shouted.
Fitzgear, who was nearby, quickly reached out, and indeed, he pulled up a man covered in blood.
By the faint light, Selt saw that the person pulled up was indeed Ford. He was about to ask what had happened to him, when he suddenly noticed a ferocious expression on Ford's face and eyes that were all white, with no pupils.
Selt immediately shouted in alarm, "Let him go!"
But it was already too late. Ford pounced forward and bit Fitzgear, who was still holding him, on the shoulder.
Fitzgear cried out in pain and tried to pry Ford's head away, but he couldn't budge it.
Selt rushed forward, grabbed Ford's jaw, and crushed it, finally separating the two.
Fitzgear's shoulder was already a bloody mess from the bite. He drew a short knife and snarled at Ford, "Have you gone mad?!"
But he soon realized that something was wrong with Ford. The man let out inhuman screams and lunged at him again, attempting to bite.
Selt kicked Ford away and immediately ordered, "Get out of here!"
Ford had actually turned into a zombie, and he had only been out of sight for a short while! There was something wrong with this place, definitely something very wrong!
But the moment they tried to step back, the door they had kicked open earlier slammed shut with a loud bang by some unseen force.
Then, Selt and the others sensed that a wall of Spirituality had been erected, seeming to have sealed off the inside from the outside.
Simultaneously, the ceiling above them suddenly lit up with a ghastly white light. Eight white skeletons appeared within the pale glow, suspended by an invisible force. They swiftly descended and landed on the floor.
These eight skeletons had red lights glowing in their eye sockets, and they were all armed. The glowing sockets looked like eerie eyes, coldly staring at Selt and the others!
Fitzgear and the brown-haired man, Grant, grew nervous at the sight of the skeletal warriors. They often participated in combat arenas and weren't lacking in fighting experience, but they had rarely dealt with undead creatures like this.
"Don't be afraid!" Selt said, "These skeleton warriors are very weak!"
As he spoke, he glanced toward the second floor. He knew that Lelouch was hiding somewhere upstairs, controlling everything...
The skeleton warriors began charging at the living beings in the room. Selt put on his gloves and kicked the reanimated corpse of Ford, who was charging again, toward the skeleton warriors, completing his Bribe.
Immediately after, Selt raised his hand and declared, "Weaken!"
The pale glow on the eight skeleton warriors visibly faded. Their bones turned yellowish and developed numerous small holes, as if they had suddenly developed osteoporosis.
Selt rushed forward, punched one skeleton warrior to pieces, and charged toward the staircase.
Seeing how easily these skeleton warriors were dealt with, his two subordinates also raised their weapons and began fighting them...
Selt took the first step carefully, and only after avoiding any false steps did he breathe a sigh of relief and continue ascending.
It was a split staircase, with a small landing in the middle that divided the stairs into a lower and upper sections.
When Selt reached the small landing in the middle, he turned sideways, intending to step onto the upper section of the staircase to continue upward, but found himself facing the downward-leading lower section instead.
He was momentarily confused, trying hard to remember if he had turned sideways or not: 'Did I take a wrong turn? Turning left had somehow become the complete opposite?'
Selt turned his head and saw that the upper section of the staircase was actually to his side. He turned toward that direction again, but what appeared before him was still the downward-leading lower section!
This sent a chill down Selt's spine, a Sequence 7 'Briber'. At his level, he had certainly heard stories of Beyonders encountering evil spirits... {T/N: 'Briber' is Sequence 7 of the 'Black Emperor' Pathway...}
It was said that some evil spirits possessed terrifying abilities that could trap Beyonders in very small areas, making them circle endlessly until they were exhausted, at which point the evil spirit would devour their souls.
But Lelouch wasn't an evil spirit!
"Ahh! Help!" A cry came from downstairs.
Selt saw that the skeleton warriors had been defeated, but a strange red mouth had appeared on the ceiling of the first floor. The mouth was filled with crimson suction cups and fangs.
At that moment, the strange mouth was making a sucking motion. The wound on the injured Fitzgear's shoulder turned outward, and blood gushed out like a fountain, eventually streaming into the red mouth.
Grant, with his hands trembling, tried to press on Fitzgear's wound to stop the bleeding. It wasn't that Grant had poor nerves... it was just that he had never seen such a bizarre monster or such a strange method of attack.
Selt raised his leg, preparing to go downstairs to help, but in an instant, what appeared before him was actually the upper section of the staircase!
He was trapped here! Trapped on the small landing by some mysterious force!
By now, Fitzgear's voice had grown very weak, his words indistinct, and his muscles rapidly withered.
Grant's attempts to staunch the bleeding had little effect.
Watching his companion turn into a desiccated corpse before his eyes, Grant stood up, his whole body trembling, his gaze vacant: "The Underworld... this must be the Underworld... this monster must have come from the Underworld... it's turned this place into the Underworld... this is no place for the living..."
At that moment, the zombie, Ford, pounced on Grant, biting and tearing at his former companion.
Fortunately, Selt had earlier crushed the zombie's jaw, so it couldn't do much damage to Grant. But this seemed to be the final straw for Grant. He screamed wildly, threw the zombie off his back, smashed through the window, and jumped out.
Immediately, Selt, who was on the staircase, realized that Lelouch had intentionally let Grant escape, because he felt a gaze focusing on him.
This meant that Lelouch was focusing all his attention on him!
Selt bolstered his own courage, "He's just a Sequence 8."
He had already thought of a way to break the force trapping him. He leaped upward, grabbed the railing of the second floor, and with a strong pull from his arms, hauled himself up to the second floor...
The second floor had a small living room and a short hallway with two rooms on each side. At the end of the hallway, a black figure was crouching on the floor, one hand touching the ground.
The floor was covered with crisscrossing lines and symbols, though it was unclear what they represented.
After Selt came upstairs, the black figure looked up. It was none other than Lelouch, wearing a mask and a worn black coat.
Selt said coldly, "As expected, it was you causing trouble all along!"
He glanced at the lines and strange symbols beneath his feet, wondering how Lelouch had created all those traps: 'He did all that with just these lines and symbols?'
"Did you find everything that just happened terrifying?" Odis said with a chuckle, "That's because when I was setting up these arrays, I happened to be researching the Underworld and the abilities of the 'Death' Pathway... Now, it's just you and me. Before you die, I'll make sure you understand exactly what you just experienced."
~~~
{T/N: Lately, I've been seeing multiple recommendations of Shadow Slave from the Webnovel App... Interested, I wanted to give it a try, but I immediately lost interest upon noticing it had 2000+ chapters.
My fellow lotm sect members, please give it to me straight... is the book worth the hype, or did I just dodge a bullet?}