Empire Building With Infinite Warehouse-Chapter 51: Shadow Contract

"Why exactly do I have to be the one to go search for him?" Ignis complained, his heavy boots kicking up dust as he sprinted down the ruined street.

Chris ran beside him, his jaw clenched tight in deep annoyance, but his eyes remained entirely focused on the industrial sector coming ahead.

"Are you sure Julien is in that factory?"

Alice ran silently next to Chris, while Milana kept a fast pace on Ignis’s other side, her longbow already firmly gripped in her hand.

"Yes," Ignis replied, adjusting the grip on the hilt of his massive broadsword.

"Where is the rest of your party?" Chris asked, glancing sideways at the high-ranking Awakened.

"Shouldn’t we wait for backup?"

"It will be fine. They are local hunters securing the outer perimeter, so there is no need to stress. I can handle whatever syndicate trash grabbed your friend."

Suddenly, Milana slowed her pace slightly. Her eyes narrowed, and a cold shiver visibly ran down her arms.

"Poisonous mana," she whispered, her heightened archer senses warning wildly as she stared at the factory walls.

"It is pouring out from somewhere ahead. Use your aura to block it right now."

"What is poisonous mana?" Chris asked, immediately forcing his own blue mana to coat his skin like a thin layer of armor.

"When the portals open, animals are usually the easiest targets to get corrupted," Milana explained quickly, her breath slowing as the oppressive aura grew heavier.

"The ambient energy changes them into mutated monsters. They emit a similar, toxic power... but this... this is way too much. It feels like a walking Red Gate."

They rounded the final corner, stepping through the blown-out iron gates of the abandoned factory.

Their eyes immediately landed on the absolute slaughterhouse inside. Bodies were torn apart, fresh blood painted the cracked concrete, and in the centre of it all stood Julien.

His clothes were soaked in red, and his eyes were burning with a piercing, pupil-less yellow light.

He was holding Viper entirely off the ground by the neck.

"What happened?" Chris asked, his voice cracking as he stared at the bloody room, his eyes finally locking onto the glowing yellow eyes of his friend.

"Julien... what is that?"

Julien looked at Chris for exactly one second.

There was absolutely no recognition in those glowing eyes.

Then, Julien effortlessly twisted his wrist.

CRACK.

Viper’s neck snapped instantly. The interrogator’s body went entirely limp.

"What the hell..." Ignis muttered, instinctively drawing his massive sword as the sheer pressure in the room hit him.

"Isn’t he an E-Rank? What is that power?"

"He was," Chris breathed, his hands shaking as he raised his heavy shield.

"Until yesterday."

Inside the absolute darkness of Julien’s possessed mind, a red system timer ticked downward, completely ignoring the humans entering the room.

[Time Remaining: 02:30]

Julien casually tossed Viper’s lifeless body aside like a piece of trash. The shadows around his feet began to writhe and increase, climbing up his legs like thorns.

Then, he moved.

Before Chris could even process the movement or speak another word, Julien was already directly in front of him.

Chris’s survival instincts screamed, and he violently thrust his shield forward, planting his feet and bracing for a massive impact.

It was completely useless.

Julien pulled his arm back and punched the dead centre of the thick metal shield.

BOOM.

The sheer physical force behind the blow didn’t just dent the heavy steel but completely shattered it.

A shockwave exploded outward, cracking the concrete beneath their feet. Chris felt his ribs groan under the transfer as he was launched backwards like a wooden box.

He flew through the air, crashing badly into the factory’s brick wall and slumping to the ground in a pile of rubble and dust.

"Chris!" Alice yelled.

Ignis didn’t hesitate and planted his feet, his own mana flaring aggressively.

"Focus on the target!" he roared.

He swung his broadsword in a massive, sweeping arc when a crescent-shaped wave of burning orange energy erupted from the steel blade, tearing through the ground as it sped directly toward Julien.

Julien merely tilted his upper body to the side, letting the scorching orange cleave pass harmlessly past his shoulder, slicing into a pillar behind him.

Then, Julien raised his own hand.

A thick tentacle of black shadow shot from his palm, but instead of forming a piercing spike, it flattened and curved.

In a terrifying display of combat adaptation, the possessed merchant released a perfect, shadowy replica of the same cleave Ignis had just used.

The black wave of energy tore through the air, moving twice as fast.

Ignis’s eyes went wide.

He quickly raised his broadsword horizontally to block, pouring all his defensive mana into the weapon to redirect the attack.

CLANG

SHATTER.

The shadow cleave sheared straight through the high-tier sword, snapping the thick metal cleanly in half while the remaining force of the dark energy slammed into Ignis’s chest plate, breaking his armour into pieces and leaving a deep, bleeding wound across his torso.

Ignis grunted in pain, stumbling backwards and dropping to one knee, completely disarmed.

"Hey!"

Milana leapt from the side, drawing her bowstring all the way back to her cheek.

She released a specialised tactical arrow that whistled sharply through the air, aiming directly for Julien’s chest.

Julien simply reached out and caught the arrow perfectly in his bare hand mid-flight, his yellow eyes locking onto the archer.

But Milana smirked. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Tick.

Tick.

A hidden mechanism inside the arrowhead is activated. The arrow detonated in a massive explosion, instantly engulfing Julien in a thick, blinding cloud of grey smoke and fire.

Milana didn’t wait to see the results. She immediately repositioned, sprinting to the opposite side of the smoke cloud and drawing another arrow and aimed directly at the centre of the blast radius, waiting for the shadow to emerge.

The smoke slowly cleared.

And Julien wasn’t there.

A sudden, freezing chill ran straight up Milana’s spine.

Massive goosebumps erupted all over her neck and arms as the scent of blood filled her nose.

He was standing right behind her.

Before she could even turn her head, a cold, vice-like hand clamped brutally around the back of her neck.

Julien lifted her completely off the ground and slammed her face-first into the concrete floor with terrifying force.

The ground spider-webbed beneath the impact. Milana coughed up a mouthful of blood, her vision swimming in and out of focus as the air was entirely knocked out of her lungs.

Julien raised his right hand. The shadows rapidly pooled around his fingers, solidifying to form a razor-sharp, flat black blade.

He looked down at her with absolute, cold indifference, preparing to finish her off with a single downward chop.

Far away from the physical world, deep within the suffocating void of his own mind, Julien’s original consciousness was floating.

He was trapped in an endless ocean of pitch-blackness.

The Beast was in total control, simply overseeing its helpless host from the inside.

Julien struggled desperately, his mind thrashing against the cold chains of the possession, but he was completely powerless against the Tier 2 entity.

He could only feel the faint, distant echoes of the terrifying violence his body was currently committing on the outside.

Back in the factory, the shadow blade descended toward Milana’s neck.

CLANG!

A heavy piece of metal, the broken top half of Chris’s ruined shield—flew from the side of the room, striking Julien directly in the side of the head with incredible force.

The impact didn’t damage him, but it forcefully knocked his aim off balance.

Julien slowly turned his head, his glowing yellow eyes locking onto the source.

Chris was standing near the crumbled brick wall.

He had tossed the remaining pieces of his broken shield aside. In his right hand, he now held a long, silver broadsword.

Blood was dripping down his forehead from the crash, but his eyes were burning with determination.

A thick, powerful aura of pure blue energy was rapidly emitting from his body, swirling around his boots and coating the blade of his sword in a heavy, protective light.

"JULIEN!" Chris shouted, his voice echoing off the factory walls, carrying a desperate mix of anger and grief.

The possessed body didn’t flinch, neither showed any emotion.

In the corner of Julien’s hijacked vision, the red numbers flashed again, uncaring about the stand-off.

[Time Remaining: 02:00]

The concrete beneath Julien’s boots cracked as the shadows slowly wrapped around his legs.

The blue energy around Chris flared like a roaring fire.

Without another word, both Chris and Julien moved at the same time, charging toward each other to clash in the centre of the bloody factory floor.