Eldritch Creature's Guide-Chapter 134 Bishop Antigonus
After they killed several of the Assassins, they captured one alive and one ran away, as the sniper managed to sneak away, but Samiel knew that he wouldn't get that far because he sent Nefertari to finish him off.
Even though the sniper was Silver-Tier and Nefertari only a Bronze-Tier, she had her Level 3 Ultimate Ability Shadow Monarch, which was perfect for sneak assassinations. Of course, not only for assassinations but also for single combat, if used in the correct way, it was an Ultimate Ability for a certain reason.
Thus he left that one runner to Yvraine while he caught the souls of the deceased assassins and immediately stuffed them into his mouth, munching on them, as they were pretty tasty. That was not surprising as they were the souls of elite Silver-Tier Professionals, meaning their souls were relatively powerful and thus, their taste was much tastier.
[You have devoured the soul of Level 64 Silver-Tier Professional, Class: Assassin.]
[You have devoured the soul of Level 68 Silver-Tier Professional, Class: Shadow Assassin.]
[You have devoured the soul of Level 65 Silver-Tier Professional, Class: Blade Master.]
[You have devoured the soul of Level 61 Silver-Tier Professional, Class: Assassin.]
As he ate the souls of the 4 killed assassins, he was getting bits and bits of their memories; unfortunately, his proficiency with the Level 3 Ultimate Ability Soul Devour was not high enough to get everything, but he still got enough to have some complete image over the situation.
Soul Devour was a peculiar ability in this aspect because to unlock the memories of the person whose soul he devoured; he needed to have relatively high proficiency in the said ability. Of course, the higher proficiency didn't give him only the benefit of extracting the memories from the souls devoured, but also getting their experiences in Skills or greater power from the souls themselves.
This unit of five assassins were one of the elite black units of the Avalon Kingdom that operated in the Lower to Middle Worlds, and lower Floors of the Tower. Of course, they were not the only ones that were presently on the 8th Floor of the Tower, but rather one of several such units.
Their mission on the 8th Floor was the assassination of several high-profile targets, especially those from the stronger Demon Tribes. If one looked from the point of view of the Avalon Kingdom, this was indeed the best chance to carry out several assassinations like this amidst the chaos that was currently taking place on the 8th Floor of the Tower.
Samiel got onto the list together with Yvraine because they raided one of the forward fortresses of the Human Brotherhood and got the synergies or how Samiel called them, the Super Soldier Serums.
Their mission was to kill them both and take their Dimensional Equipment to see if they still had those serums. Just the fact alone that they were able to figure out where they were able to find them so easily, meant that the Avalon Kingdom probably sent Seer to the 8th Floor.
Seers were peculiar types of Magicians because all of them were natural-born Arcanists whose Magic came foremost from their bloodlines as they were all Sorcerers due to their Seer Bloodline, which allowed them to divine the future. Of course, this needed a lot of training to make some calculations and other things, especially for the people who were blessed by the Transcendents like Primordial Demiurge.
Samiel was sure that the Legendary Level Seer who divined their position for the Assassination Unit of the Human Brotherhood to ambush them successfully was already out of commission because such toll would be heavy even for Supreme Stage Legendary Seer, as the Blessings of Transcendents was nothing to scoff at.
For the assassinations, they sent their best team that operated among the mortals under the Gold-Tier. Even from the Classes that they had, both Blade Master and Shadow Assassins were Rare Classes, aside from the remaining two, which had a Normal Class of Assassins. Still, they were very powerful for their Tier, so Samiel concluded that the Avalon Kingdom must have invested a lot of resources into them.
Especially he looked at their Power Armors with sparkles in his eyes. While he was not that knowledgeable about Magetech and blacksmithing, he recognized one thing about these Power Armors. While they were only Normal-Grade Power Armors, they were equally powerful and strong compared to even some Rare-Grade Armors.
It was some kind of new design that he had never seen before in the catalogs provided by the Goldstone Manufacturing Armory, and that meant only a single one... a new developed one, and if he had to bet if he could get at least partially reverse-engineering that, he would make a lot of money.
Each faction was keeping some close pieces of technology to itself and right now Samiel managed to find something new. He was aware that the demons would be too stupid to exploit that opportunity financially, as they would rather destroy the armors or whatever.
[Proficiency with the Level 3 Ultimate Ability Soul Devour has been increased by 1%.]
On top of all, Smaiel also got increasement of his Level 3 Ultimate Ability Soul Devour by 1%, which was a very nice surprise. He looked around to see that Yvriane was lying on the ground, resting from the repeated overuse of Metamagic, and she was not that far from the Mana Exhaustion.
One of the hidden dangers of the species closer to Mana, like Dragons or Silvermopon Elves, the Mana Exhaustion, while extremely hard to achieve, was also deadly to them, as most of them wouldn't be able to survive it or could have very severe aftereffects of the Mana Exhaustion.
Fortunately, Yvraine already took several very potent Mana Potions or else her circumstances would be far more severe than just fatigue. Not to mention, she was also forced to drink a mouthful of the Holy Water from the Moon Pond because he recklessly used her Metamagic in an attempt to kill those assassins quickly.
They were pretty problematic to fight because even Samiel noticed that his Undead were useless because they were far more faster than the Undead and ignored all attacks and injuries they suffered. Only focusing on their mission which was to kill two of them, and it was clear that they were ready to sacrifice their very own lives for that.
He went there and checked on Yvraine, to see that she was mainly okey. Aside from her Mana being a little bit chaotic, but that was already in the process of calming down, there was nothing wrong with her. She was recovering from the signs of the Mana Exhaustion very well and quickly; that was the achievement of the Holy Water from the Moon Pond and several very high-graded Mana Potions reined by the Imperial Alchemists of the Nesser Dynasty.
After checking on her, he turned his sight to the captured Assassin from the Avalon Kingdom, whom the Undeads were holding down. Surprisingly, the man didn't struggle or anything, and Samiel knew that interrogating him was an absolute waste of time because, for sure, he was forced to sign some contracts that would prevent him from spilling everything he knew.
While such things were very powerful, Samiel could bypass them by devouring the souls with his Level 3 Ultimate Ability Soul Devour and especially his racial heritage as the three-quarter Eldritch Creature. If not for that, he would too be helpless in front of this situation, but he wanted to keep this one alive, because there was way better to get out what he wanted from him then devouring his soul.
Instead of killing him and feasting on his soul, he started typing something on the terminal of his Holo-Brain, and soon a holographic image of a middle-aged man appeared before him. The man in question was wearing the garbs of a priest, albeit much more luxurious than the ordinary clergy of the Hall of Kadath, signifying his position as the Bishop of the Hall of Kadath.
He had silver hair and wolf-like ears, signifying his heritage as a wolf-type beastmen, a weird hybrid between Human and beast. Beastmen were an artificial race in the Cosmos, created by ancient mighty Transcendent, on a similar level as the Crawling Chaos, that perished in a long-forgotten era. pan(da-n0vel.c)om
Most, if not of the beastmen, had a hideous appearance that of the beast, and their intelligence was often no different from the wild beast, as they acted solely on their instincts and nothing else, making them extremely dangerous foes.
Those of the beastmen, with powerful lineages, had more humanoid appearances, whereas their beast-like features were not that significant. In the case of Abraham Antigonus, he had pair of wolf-like ears atop of his head and a wolf tail; also he could turn into various wolfoid forms like the werewolves could.
"To what should I thank for this call, Holy Son?"
Abraham Antigonus was twisted even among the standards of the Hall of Kadath, not like it was something that was bad for Samiel, as surprisingly, he communicated a few times already with the man, and they hit off very well together. f𝔯ℯe𝓌ℯ𝐛𝒏𝐨ѵel.c𝚘𝐦
"I have procured a subject that would need your tender care, Bishop."
Samiel said with a smile as Bishop Antinugus grinned, showing his fangs. He was one of the people, who were candidates of becoming the next Cardinal of the Hall of Kadath, because not only he was already nearing Level 90, even though the official requirement Level-wise to be named as Cardinal was Level 95.
Samiel learned that there were other requirements for the candidate to become a Cardinal, and ones that were more prevalent, aside from personal strength, were capabilities and skill. Each of the present Cardinals were masters of their own craft, like for example, the Cardinal Zaldidraax was unparalleled in martial arts and other disciplines, able to teach others of the Hall of Kadath collective, increasing the strength of the newcomers and veterans alike.
Cardinal Shen Long was one of the most knowledgeable people in the so-called Daoist Magic, which was a very rare and obscure type of Magic developed by the Transcendents of the Immortal Path.
Cardinal Karliana Kricheisen was, aside from fearsome warrior and master on the battlefield, was a famous Alchemist who specialized in Potioneering, Artificing and even started dabbling into Magetech Engineering, so the Hall of Kadath would lower the gap between them and the Magisterium in this aspect.
Most importantly, he was an expert in interrogation, information gathering, and espionage and a master in Sealing Magic and Warding, so Samiel was sure that he could break the contracts and seals that were protecting the memories of the captured assassin.
Not to mention that after they are broken, Bishop Abraham Antigonus would be able to make him speak within several seconds. He was sure that the assassin had some juicy information that would be extracted from and, probably, the Avalonian thought that they would have an unhindered playground here or that nobody at the Legendary Level would be looking at them.
"Of course, it would be my pleasure to serve the Hall, I will immediately create and spatial crack and you just throw him there."
Stated Bishop Antigonus, as Samiel nodded, secretly marveling that the man could create a portal between two Floors of the Tower, presuming he was in the Tower, which was unknown. That was also due to his mastery over the element of Space and the spatial spells were his forte, as that went well with the Sealing and Warding he learned.
Soon enough, a spatial crack appeared near Samiel as he picked up the Assassin from the Avalon Kingdom and threw him to the spatial crack like a sack of potatoes, after which the spatial crack automatically closed itself like nothing had happened.
"Hmm... this one indeed has some pretty neat seal engraved directly in his soul, aside from the type of magical contract which is more likely acting as some superficial defensive line. The only way to break it is either to dissolve it one rune by another or the have some powerful Leveled Ability that would be able to bypass it."
Samiel was listening to Bishop Antigonus, who immediately started scanning the captured assassin, as he would for sure be the golden well of information. Unfortunately, my Proficiency with the Level 3 Ultimate Ability Soul Devour was low and to see a complete memory, I would need to have Proficiency above 90%, and if there were the seals and runes on the soul, then 100% was needed for sure.
"I would need at least one week to have it properly removed... I could see a few failsafe that the caster installed there, in case somebody attempted to remove those restrictions manually. The magical contract which is protecting the soul is not a that big problem; that could be taken care of within two days, but those runes which have been fused with the soul would be a hard nut to crack."
Half commented and half praised Bishop Antigonus the problem, as Samiel was right now thinking about something else. It was apparent that the protections on the souls of those assassins were even far stricter and better than Samiel initially thought, and that could mean only one thing.
The Avalon Kingdom wanted something to hide so desperately that they even went to such extreme measures like fusing the entire runic matrix into the souls of the Assassins, which was an extremely hazardous process because if there was even a slight mistake or miscalculation, then they would be instantly killed.
"Then I will be leaving this one in your tender care."
Samiel stated as he ended the call with Bishop Abraham Antigonus, not missing his grin as the Bishop looked at the captured assassin from the Avalon Kingdom. Afterward, he focused more on the pressing matters because they needed to return back to the Goldtooth City.
He then ordered the Undeads to clean out the battlefield, and with stored Power Armors that were safely stored within his Dimensional Ring, he, together with Yvraine, returned to the City, as the plans were already being created how to monetize the Power Armors.
Samiel always dreamed that he would one day found his own corporation, and apparently, this time, he had some sort of opportunity, as he could start manufacturing weapons, as that was a commodity that was selling the fastest in the Cosmos.
He also planned to cheat and use his position as the Holy Son of the Hall of Kadath to procure needed things for his vision of the weapon manufacturing corporation, which he planned to germinate even far bigger than the biggest corporations in the Cosmos.
The first thing he would need to do is to obtain someone knowledgeable enough about the Magetech who would help him reverse-engineering the Power Armors, and then Samiel planned to implement more automatization into the process of their creation.
From what he saw, automatization was not that spread across many of the equipment manufacturers, as from what he saw, even a heavy majority of the GMA, Goldstone Manufacturing Army worked mainly on manufactures and not the concept of factories that were completely automatized and spawning equipment after another.
Sometimes he cursed how huge the technological disparities between various factions and places across the Cosmos were because each faction had a different level of technology; some of them, like Magisterium or Germinal Order, were extremely technologically advanced, while other factions were still in "middle-ages" as they didn't use any magetech or anything.