lust bound: The prostitute rank up system.-Chapter 128: A class

" It’s an artifact. There is a group that wants it. I got it in a throw-away auction that sells dead awakened things," he said, and started to dig into his pocket.

Alaric had never heard of a throwaway auction, so that came to him as a surprise.

"What’s so important about that? It’s not like they’re uncommon."

The man chuckled and shook his head.

" If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t be trying to hide it. This thing is an abomination to all awakeners," he said.

He pulled out a small green ring. Alaric leaned over and looked at it. He extended his arm to pick it but hesitated and looked at the man.

The man nodded.

Alaric picked up the artifact and studied it. At first it looked like a normal ring, but upon closer look. It was a snake eating its own tail. The details on it were so intricate that he could even see the small lines on the green snake. Its red jewelled eyes looked as though they were looking up at him.

He stopped looking at it when he started to feel woozy; that was when he realized the ring was drawing him in. Alaric now understood why it was so important. If this were just a passive effect from looking at it, what about its active skill?

" What does it do?" He asked and raised the ring high up. It reflected the light and shone brighter. The snake pattern appeared on the wall and Alaric swore he saw it moving.

" It absorbs power."

" Like copying someone’s power. I don’t think that warrants it being called an abomination."

The man shook his head.

" No, not like that I wouldn’t be hiding if it was that kind of skill, I would have already sold it. This is much worse. It drains your power and level after being used on you. Just a drop of your blood is all it needs before sucking all your hard work. It then transfers the power to the wearer.

It boosts power and increases your level fast, but it has side effects. The person who uses it eventually develops a taste for blood and goes manic. Imagine if hundreds of awakeners are drained of their power, then the drainer reaches S class. What do you think will happen with a Manic S class on the loose?"

Alaric shivered just from the implications. He put the ring back on the table and pushed it to the man’s side.

" Why don’t you take it to the association?"

The man sighed in defeat.

" You think we don’t want to. But this thing was already in the awakener association’s hand, but it got stolen. I went to the association to return it when I saw one of the people who had tried to kill me was getting chummy with one of the S class, his name is Malcolm.

Ivory said you might know people from higher up who might help with this thing, I genuinely want this time bomb out of my hands."

Alaric picked the ring again and looked at it. Since Ivory had thrown her troubles to him he had to get his risks worth.

" I think I can get it safely to the association or maybe even higher but I won’t be doing that for free. I’ll be putting someone extremely important in danger if I decide to help you. "

The man hesitated a bit.

" I’m not really sure what to give you... "

" What was your name again ?"

" Derrick."

" So, Derrick, you can already imagine what trouble you have brought me here. I really can’t help for free. Also, did you make sure you weren’t being followed?"

" I’m sure I wasn’t."

He didn’t sound confident. Alaric stood up abruptly.

" How did you get here?"

" I drove my bike, is something wrong?"

Alaric’s senses were tingling. Something wasn’t right. Several killing intents had entered the brothel. The moment they stepped through the estate barrier he knew Derrick had been followed.

" You probably had a tracker on your bike. We...."

AAAAH!

A loud scream split the air the moment Alaric opened the door. He ran towards the source leaving Derrick behind. His only worries were his staff and his customers.

He reached the lounge to find most of the customers had moved to the side of the room. Among the guests, some had their weapons drawn, looking at the guards who were engaging with a group of five masked assassins.

Alaric didn’t hesitate. He swung his whip at the first assassin near him, wrapped it around his waist, and threw him outside the lounge. The man managed to narrowly escape hitting the glass door. He rolled on the ground before coming to a stop.

" Outside," Alaric shouted.

Alaric attacked the next one and kicked him in his chest. The man flew back and broke through the glass door leading to the courtyard.

Darius kicked the one fighting him, sending him through the glass door, and followed. The other two were also handled by Kael and Rhea.

He turned back to look at the crowd of his customers. He could feel killing intent directed at him the moment he appeared but he wanted to get rid of the five fighting since he wasn’t attacked immediately.

It wasn’t from the assassins entering the hotel barrier; it was from one of the customers. Another assassin had sneaked in and blended perfectly into the crowd.

The person clearly wanted to see how he fought.

Alaric spotted him at the end of the crowd covered by the crowd of customers.

He looked at the awakened customers who still had their weapons drawn and looking out at the battle outside with passion and smiled.

" Anyone who can take one down gets free drinks and a one-week ten percent discount for anything. For the top three, they’ll get secret rewards that will be worth their time and efforts."

He had also sensed more of the killing intent, and he knew the guards would eventually be swamped. Thinking about it the best thing to do was to turn this thing into a competition. They were basically free labour.

Almost fifteen awakened stepped forward and the rest remained within the group.

" I can do the healing," Carrie, one of the newly awakened prostitutes, said, stepping forward. Alaric smiled.

" That’s brave of you but stay near the crowd. You can go heal those who were badly injured, but those with little injuries just give them healing patches; we have a lot of those."

She nodded and walked to the edge of the crowd.

Alaric kept his eyes on the assassin who had sneaked in with the assassins sent for Derrick.

Alaric was sure he was different from how strong he seemed. He couldn’t exactly gauge his rank, but his guess was an A-class awakened. Their eyes met through the crowd.

" Let’s not do this inside," Alaric said to the man.

This was a gamble he was taking. If the man had taken him as a serious opponent, he would have attacked him already, but he just stood there and observed him without caring if he was caught or not.

He was probably thinking he was easy prey.

" Why should I care?" The man said and walked towards him.

" It’s restrictive and I want to die trying," Alaric said. He wanted the man’s pride to take over. It would be safer for his customers if he fought outside.

The man was silent for a bit before shrugging his shoulders.

" A dying man’s last wish, I can’t be that cruel. I respect you for wanting to protect mere strangers."

Alaric rolled his eyes inwardly, he was speaking as though he was doing him a favor.

" Thank you."

Alaric led him to the back of the mansion, which overlooked the mountains. Since it was dark and the only light came from the brothel and fireflies that swayed beautifully in the darkness as they tried to attract their mates.

Roots came out from under him. Alaric jumped back on time, but before he could rest, more appeared under him. This continued as Alaric continued jumping and was left to rest for two seconds before he had to jump again.

He swung his whip mid-air towards the man, but before it could reach him, a wall of woven plants appeared before him.

The whip hit and wrapped around the wall. The red string shone and the plant veins started to burn. Alaric pulled the whip destroying the makeshift shield.

The man got behind him while he was destroying the shield.

Alaric jumped and rolled avoiding the sharp arrow of twisted plant veins. He wrapped his whip around the vines and catapulted himself towards the man.

He managed to kick the man directly in the chest, but the man only stepped back a few steps.

" You know, for a B class, you’re good," he complimented him.

" Thanks it took a lot of being beaten up."

Alaric swung his whip. It landed on the ground next to the man breaking the ground.

Veins started to shoot from the ground around him as Alaric avoided the ones that shot at him. He swung his whip towards the man, but the man made another shield, and the whip didn’t hit him.

Alaric was getting frustrated, the man seemed to be toying with him and not taking him seriously, probably because he was of a lower level.

" You know you should be careful of your surroundings," the man said and smiled maniacally.