Returning to the Mysterious Era-Chapter 416 - Answer Me, Reptile!

"A Dark Gold Hunter was seriously injured, and three White Dazzling Hunters lost their lives. Tsk, the first round of competition for the Shadow Hunter seat is no joke this time. It's much tougher than it was in my day..." Jem clicked his tongue.

"Of course. Back when you did it, it was twenty years ago. Over the past decade, the activity of dark creatures throughout the entire empire has markedly risen. The number of dangerous individuals has soared to one-and-a-half or even twice the previous levels. As a branch leader, you should be well aware. Don't tell me you really retired to the branch office and became a complete hands-off boss." Kames, who knew Jem quite well, teased him.

"Hey, can't I at least enjoy my retirement? Besides, the branch I oversee in Fort County really is pretty calm. The activity and danger of dark creatures there has at most gone up by one or two levels lately..." Jem defended himself.

Seeing the conversation veer off track, Krog pointed at the assignment file. "The Hunters' Association failed in their last operation, and that ghoul-like dark creature has no small amount of power. Even for a Dark Gold Hunter, it poses considerable danger. Of course, White Aster, you don't need to worry about that part. The real trouble is figuring out how to locate that dark creature hidden somewhere in Florence. If it stays out of sight for ten days, there'll be problems..."

Cassius nodded slightly, aware that it was indeed worth noting. However, he actually already had a solution in mind. Over the past half month or so, Cassius had frequently met with Ghost-Man and Iron Knight in the World of Calamity, and gained more insight into Black Rain Manor's prime era. For instance, the existence of a piece of black-bait wood inside Black Rain Manor that emitted a peculiar fragrance. Just a thumb-sized piece of it was enough to lure dark creatures. Naturally, the range of its scent was not very large and had its limitations.

He planned to figure out the details of the serial murders and their locations first, then make a rough deduction of where that ghoul might be. After that, he would "fish" for it using black-bait wood.

"I'm off," Cassius said, donning a hunter's outfit and leaving Herb's house. After questioning the Hunters' Association for the specifics, he obtained detailed information on the entire process of the mission. There were a total of seven murder cases, all of which had occurred in District Four of Florence. Every pleasure street was located there, so among the victims were two prostitutes from those areas.

Because the task was an A-level danger, the crime scenes had remained sealed off, guarded by security forces. Cassius decided to investigate them first and contact Ghost-Man through certain special channels at the same time.

Departing from the Hunters' Association, he boarded a black carriage. Twenty minutes later, he arrived at District Four of Florence.

On Symphony Street 114, there was a meat-processing factory. This site was where the first of the serial murders had occurred, fifteen days earlier.

In front of the light blue rectangular warehouse stood four guards dressed in alternating navy-blue uniforms. Upon seeing Cassius approach, they hurried to greet him. He showed his hunter's badge along with official investigation papers from the Hunters' Association. He then walked straight into the warehouse.

It was nearly nine in the morning, and while the sunlight outside was bright, the interior of the warehouse was remarkably dim and gloomy. The white walls were dotted with dark spots, with what looked like caked-on grime and green moss in the corners. Rows of shelves were coated in sticky grease, tinted a dull yellowish color, while from the rail above hung one metal hook after another for suspending meat.

Cassius saw that at the darkest end of the warehouse, there was a cordoned-off section. Clearly, the evidence lay there. He strode toward it and gradually caught a whiff of a nauseating stench. It reminded him of the smell that came from crushing insects mixed with the odor of rotten meat.

Showing no change of expression, Cassius walked over. Suddenly, he stopped and glanced downward. There was a footprint, one that sank deeply into the floor. It was twice the size of a normal human foot, with four claw-like toes embedded into the cement, leaving strikingly clear indentations.

He stepped around the footprint and looked up ahead. A half-ruined wooden workbench appeared to have been struck by something enormous. Next to the workbench was a bent iron rack bearing scratch marks, possibly from some metal tool or possibly from something sharp like scales. After looking over all the evidence, Cassius turned his gaze to the wall.

There was a large bloodstain there, its edges bearing splatter patterns. Its color had turned to dark brown, appearing as a big blot on the wall's surface.

Cassius moved forward, narrowing his eyes slightly. He slowly extended his arm, pressing it against the wall.

A faint hum sounded...

He exerted short, urgent bursts of force three or four times in quick succession, causing large chunks of wall plaster to flake off, along with the dark brown blood. Beneath the grime lay a spiral pattern, reminiscent of a conch shell. The entire pattern was about the size of a cartwheel, deeply etched into the wall.

"A Calamity Tunnel?" Cassius's gaze grew grim. The spiral pattern before him looked nearly identical to what he had seen on that ancient tree beside the Knights' Fortress. The only difference was that this one was smaller and more crudely done.

"A dark creature coming from the deeper layers of the World of Calamity into the surface world, hunting for food?" he murmured with a slight frown, then left the warehouse.

Over the next few hours, right up until noon, Cassius shuttled between seven locations, inspecting every crime scene. He made some observations at each, but found no further spiral patterns.

Perhaps it was a one-way Calamity Tunnel, allowing a dark creature to emerge from the calamity world for a hunting spree. Based on the movements of that ghoul-type dark creature, Cassius marked a few sections on the map of Florence's District Four—three in total—that he deemed the most likely sites for it to reappear.

Finishing his morning survey, Cassius stood at the end of a pleasure street alley, deciding to visit the sanatorium to question the severely injured Dark Gold Hunter. He might glean some information about the ghoul from that individual.

He had only walked about a block when he noticed that a nearby building had been cordoned off, with uniformed guards in navy-blue stationed around it. They were busy evacuating the building's occupants.

Travelers emerged one by one, fear etched on their faces, looking pale as a sheet. Clearly, something horrifying had happened inside.

Cassius walked over, showed the guards his hunter's insignia, and asked what had taken place. The young guard summoned his commanding officer. He was a slightly overweight, middle-aged man sporting a bristly beard.

"Esteemed hunter, there was a homicide on the second floor. Two adult men were killed, and in a horrific way—half of their bodies were eaten. We've already reported the matter to the Hunters' Association for action..."

"Which room on the second floor? I'll have a look." Cassius replied impassively.

"The last one at the end of the second-floor corridor," the guard captain answered truthfully.

Cassius nodded, wasting no time heading into that inn.

He had a hunch today might bring luck. Perhaps his target had come knocking on the door itself. Conveniently, this inn fell within one of the three sections Cassius had circled as the ghoul's likely hideout for its next crime. Adding in what the guard had said about the victims having signs of being devoured, it strongly suggested the ghoul's handiwork.

It was more than fifty percent likely that this was the target Cassius was after.

Now that his strength was restored, he had no fear of the target's danger level. Even if it were Class S instead of Class A, Cassius would still face it without hesitation. His only concern was how to locate it.

He walked steadily onward, passed through the inn's lobby, and climbed the stairs. On the second floor, the faint smell of blood drifted in the air. At the corner of the stairwell, several guards stood at attention. They gave Cassius's hunter badge a glance, then returned their gaze without moving at all.

Continuing along the corridor, Cassius sensed the smell of blood intensifying. He halted at an open door and saw a sticky pool of blood slowly seeping toward the doorway.

He walked in, and a gruesome sight met his eyes. There were two corpses total. One lay on the bed, while the other sat upright in a chair. The one on the bed was missing its lower half, the torn cross-section showing rough, brutish rending, soaking the sheets in blood. Meanwhile, the one in the chair had its head sliced off by claws, leaving half the upper torso gnawed bare.

The gnaw marks on the stark white bones and the heap of organs were quite a shock to behold, enough to make an ordinary person vomit on the spot. Cassius still showed no expression.

He examined the wounds, each evidently a fatal blow delivered in one clean strike. Cassius narrowed his eyes, walked over to the window, and slowly drew the curtains.

The room grew a lot darker, and once the door was shut, the enclosed space filled with that intense reek of blood. He glanced at the large bloodstain pooled in the corner of the floor, then slowly raised his head toward the ceiling. At first glance, it did not look different from usual, but as he kept staring, a drop of blood fell from above without warning.

With a light plop, it hit the floor. Though the sound was soft, it was still audible.

Suddenly there was a rustling sound. Something invisible on the ceiling seemed to move, then finally dropped, revealing its full figure. It was a dark creature that appeared half human, half lizard. Its skin was a moss-like shade of dark green, with rings of horny protrusions at the joints.

Its overall figure looked like a stretched-out human, easily two meters tall. Its two arms were not thick but rather slender, ending in three inward-curving claws with razor-sharp tips that clung to bloody bits of flesh and skin.

The dark creature's head was unmistakably that of an oversized lizard, with a wide gap between the eyes that were enormous, creating an indescribable horror.

"Heeheehee..." The lizardman uttered a weird cackle, its face twisting into a disturbingly human-like expression.

"So you caught me. What a pity! And here comes just a little Black Copper Hunter snack. Barely enough for a bite, not nearly enough for a proper meal!" Its lizard-like mouth stretched open, exposing serrated teeth with scraps of meat clinging between them. A scarlet tongue extended into the air, the surface covered in tumor-like bumps. It was ugly, and the stench it gave off was foul.

Cassius watched in silence, gleaning from its words that this dark creature had deliberately created murder scenes and then ambushed Dark Hunter Organization personnel. Furthermore, it did so with practiced skill.

"Heeheehee... Why aren't you scared, snack?" The lizardman's eyes were shot with crimson veins, hinting at mania. He spoke to himself like he had a screw loose, "You hunters are the most delicious... Far tastier than ordinary humans! Let me see... I've eaten two White Dazzling Hunters, more than a dozen Black Copper Hunters. Too bad I haven't tasted a Dark Gold Hunter yet. Bet that'd be even better! Heeheehee... heeheehee..." the lizardman chortled.

Then it walked toward Cassius in slow, heavy strides. Instead of attacking, it picked up the nearby corpse and began gnawing on it. Blood overflowed from its mouth as though it had swallowed an entire orange at once.

The lizardman looked doubtfully at Cassius, who remained rooted in place, then showed a disappointed look. "Why aren't you afraid in the slightest? Hurry up and show me a face of despair! A Black Copper Hunter is no different than any ordinary human in front of me. You're just food. I love the smell of despair right before death. That kind of meal is the tastiest, the most delectable, the sweetest..."

"So you're the ghoul who's been roaming around District Four of Florence for half a month now?" Cassius asked, keeping his aura steady.

"Ghoul?" The lizardman paused. This was the second time it had committed murder over the past fortnight, the previous one happening in a residential area. But if admitting it could spark fear in the hunter before it, the lizardman had no objection.

"Of course it's me, heeheehee... So are you scared now?" It persisted in asking, driven by a strange and manic obsession.

"In that case, if you truly are that ghoul, then tell me what's the deal with the whirlpool pattern on the wall of Vick's slaughterhouse. If your answer pleases me, maybe you'll live a bit longer." Cassius lightly tugged with his right hand, and the curtain closed fully.

"Heeheehee! What an amusing hunter... I've decided I'll savor your brain piece by piece!"

With a shredding sound, the body in the lizardman's grasp was forcibly ripped in two, sending up a spray of blood and organs. The entire room shook as it sprang forward in a full-tilt charge.

Six monstrous, misshapen hooked talons tore through the air with sudden force! It was a strike of tremendous speed, lunging straight at Cassius.

A thunderous bang echoed as the entire second-floor wall of the inn shook violently. Fragments of the building flew, leaving a man-sized hole through which sunlight streamed.

The lizardman emerged from the dust, only to find no sign of Cassius ahead. With a stunned look, it lowered its gaze to its left shoulder. Its entire arm, along with part of its torso, had been ripped off by an immense brute force. A large puddle of green blood had pooled on the floor.

"You!!!" The lizardman whipped around, glaring at the other corner of the room.

There stood a tall figure in the sunlight's margin, holding the dripping limb in his hand. His expression was as impassive as a statue. He slowly extended his right hand, and the lizardman's severed limb he had grasped began to come apart, small, crimson fragments falling like snow.

"Answer my question. I don't want to repeat it a third time, reptile..."