The Devil’s Cage

The giant figure was wholly red, it’s blood and flesh throbbing as the figure charged out.

Like Paladia said, the monster had no skin and no eyes, only a head of sorts with fangs attached on top, covering more than two thirds of the surface.

Unlike what Paladia had described, the monster was almost 4 meters tall, ridiculously buff, and its front limbs were long while its hind legs were rather short. Despite its weird physique, every part of its body was thick and robust, looking like a giant red pillar moving around. In addition to that menacing presence, it wasn’t something that everyone could simply mess around with.

BUT!

It was only that menacing in its own turf!

Now that this giant monster had charged out and come in contact with sunlight, its body was sizzling, like it was showering in acid.

While it threw itself over, the monster growled uncontrollably mid-air.

The pain on its body pulled it back from its blinding rage and returned its calmness.

It tried to hold its jump so it could return inside the building but before the monster could perform any effective move, the hook rope, which was attached to Paladia, was swung towards the monster and successfully bound to it. Kieran turned around and pulled the rope with all his might, dragging the monster, together with Paladia, over his head like a shoulder throw.

Fung!

Its own weight plus Kieran’s strength caused it to fly uncontrollably over Kieran’s head and land in the square right in front of the office building—which was an open area without any cover and where the sunlight shone the brightest.

Kaboom!

A loud bang later, Paladia, who was bound together with the monster, got knocked out and the monster itself got dizzy after crash landing, but it was the sunlight that was lethal.

Tsssst!

Under direct sunlight, the sizzling on the monster’s body got louder and fiercer, red smoke starting to spring out from its body.

Its strong muscles and bones offered no resistance against sunlight, causing excruciating pain right into its core.

It’s survival instincts urged the monster to climb up, but Kieran stomped his foot onto the monster’s head.

Crack!

The monster might be big, but under the sunlight, its head was weaker than usual, getting crushed under the stomp.

After twitching a few times, the giant body died out. The flesh and blood melted away with exceptional speed before the pile of goo exploded.

Bang!

A heavy thud sent the blood and flesh flying.

The bloody skeleton of the monster was then revealed to Kieran.

Glimmer emanated from the skeleton, very inconspicuous under the sunlight, but Kieran caught it on first glance.

He reached out and grabbed the glimmer, which revealed itself to be a stone the size of a grown man’s pinky. It was emanating colors of jade.

[Name: Ouna Stone (Cracked)]

[Type: Wonder Item]

[Rarity: Legendary]

[Attack: None]

[Defense: Extreme]

[Attribute: 1. Moonlight Shield; 2. Low Light Hiding.]

[Effect: None]

[Able to bring out of dungeon: No]

[Remark: This is a miraculous stone, some say is a product of ancient alchemy; some say is the product of Mother Nature. Regardless of what it is, no one knows, even today, but that doesdn’t stop people from using it.]

…

[Moonlight Shield: Gain a Powerful shield barrier, viable only under the moonlight, 2 times per day]

[Low Light Hiding: While in low light or dark environment, Undercover rank +1]

…

Similar to [Water Purify Stone], its remark told Kieran where the stone came from.

Kieran put the stone in his pouch around his waist.

Even though he couldn’t bring it out of this dungeon world, it was useful for his current state.

After losing the stone, the skeleton and the remaining flesh and blood withered rapidly.

“It seems like the sunlight is even more lethal to these monsters than I thought!”

Kieran squinted his eyes at the withering scene.

Before this, Lucan transformed into a bearman and went up against the monster, yet he was beaten away, proof of how strong and sturdy the monster was.

However, when Kieran engaged the monster, he couldn’t feel the strength and sturdiness of the monster’s body.

The monster was only slightly stronger than an adult male, let alone facing a bearman face to face.

As for the sturdiness of the monster’s body?

It was much weaker than an adult male, it couldn’t even withstand a blow from Kieran.

If that’s the case…

Kieran looked at the office building.

Deep inside the shadowy spot, growls started to sound uncontrollably after Kieran put [Ouna Stone] into his pouch.

It seemed like the stone meant something substantial to the monsters.

Without a second thought, Kieran returned to the mall to execute his plan, having gotten what he sought.

A few minutes later, Kieran returned in front of the office building with a mirror as tall as two men stacked together.

Kieran reflected the sunlight using the mirror and shot it through the main door of the office building.

Agonizing growls followed.

Rooooooar!

Dog-like monsters, like how Paladia had described, exploded under the sunlight reflection.

Unlike the bigger monster, which was able to move a little under direct sunlight, the smaller ones exploded right away as the sunlight was reflected, like they were bathing in the most lethal poison.

Less than a minute later, Kieran easily cleared out the entire floor by reflecting the sunlight using two mirrors.

He then moved even more mirrors out of the mall and started to arrange them to reflect even more sunlight, as if he was playing a game.

Mirror connected to mirror, mirror reflected to mirror, Kieran cleared out the second, third, fourth floor, all the way to the 20th floor without any resistance.

Box after box in each floor was picked up by Kieran.

The boxes were similar to the one holding [Expel Potion], wooden and gilded.

Paladia finally woke up, seeing four boxes placed in front of him neatly but realizing he was tied up tightly.

He never thought about clearing the monster infested floors with such a peculiar method.

“I can tell you everything I know, we can team up and get our hands on these prizes even faster!” Paladia said when he saw Kieran was moving the mirrors back and forth.

Kieran turned a deaf year at Paladia’s words, continuing what he was doing.

“Believe me! I have something you don’t know and it’s very important to you!”

Paladia started to grow restless after he got no response from Kieran.

He could only imagine how many good things were hidden in this tall office building.

If it was before, he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it, so he wouldn’t feel any different, but after he saw Kieran’s method, he was moved!

He knew Kieran’s method would work!

As long as he was careful enough, he could get himself many good items! That was if he could join Kieran in picking up the loot!

He had to join Kieran’s side, otherwise he would get nothing!

For him to realize his short-term goal, he has to say something to move Kieran, regardless of truth or not.

Kieran stopped what he was doing.

“See, we can sit down and have a good talk…”

Bang!

Paladia was overjoyed when Kieran stopped, but before he could finish, Kieran presented him with a chop on the back of his neck.

He then simply grabbed some grass from the lawn and stuffed it into Paladia’s mouth.

Kieran would never simply believe a stranger, let alone a stranger who tried to trick him on their first meeting.

In his point of view, every word that came out from these kind of people was untrustable.

In fact, if Paladia wasn’t that useful, Kieran would have killed him.

After knocking out the noisy Paladia, Kieran hastened his work. He knew his time was running out.

Those Monsters hadn’t show up yet, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t show for the entire event. The Monsters should be later than the human group and probably someone in the likes of Song Shi would also come into play.

Kieran wouldn’t say anything about this kind of obvious partiality since he was the one benefiting from it, it would only increase his carefulness.

The Herders might look casual, but they were extremely proud of themselves.

Forcing the proud Herders to lower their pride in order to stall, what would it mean?

Those Monsters and the likes of Song Shi were extremely powerful!

To the point that if the young Herders weren’t given a handicap of extra time, they would face total suppression and probably annihilation!

This was no doubt bad news for Kieran, but he had some good news too: the empty mall had nothing but mirrors!

A whole row of boutiques were constructed using only mirrors even!

Mirror after mirror was moved into the office building.

The monster infested floors were cleaned up, one after another.

Box after box was found and taken out by Kieran.

When Kieran reached the 40th floor, he found a metal box.

The design was similar to the other wooden boxes, probably an accessory container, even the gilded part was the same.

Aside from the material, this iron box was tightly sealed and had many mystical runes carved on it.

A closer look revealed some bite marks on it.

It seemed like the skinless monsters had tried to open this box but they had failed. However, when Kieran touched the box with his finger, one of the mystical runes glimmered and the box opened up by itself.

Inside wasn’t a vial of [Expel Potion] but a petite flying dagger.

[Name: Scorching Blade]

[Type: Weapon]

[Rarity: Rare]

[Attack: Strong]

[Attribute: Scorch]

[Effect: None]

[Prerequisite: None]

[Remark: Scorching Blade was forged by the Demon Hunter Family of the North, Torkemore. These daggers might be small but powerful, especially when used against negative energy beings, it contains explosive powers against one!]

…

[Scorch: Lock on to a target and when the flying dagger hits the target, inflict an Extreme fire damage. After the trigger, Scorching Blade will be damaged and the damage is irreversible!]

[Note: You have to hurl it yourself and hit the target]

…

Kieran picked the small flying dagger up and felt its weight. He skillfully swirled the dagger on the tip of his finger before he put it into his shirt pocket, a spot where he could easily access.

After that, he headed up to the 41st floor.

Just like before, he used the sunlight reflection to open a path up, but unlike the previous floors, the 41st floor had no monsters at all, even with the traces of monsters lurking around on the ground.

The windows were similar to the other floors, sealed up with a layer of goo to prevent sunlight from coming in.

Kieran listened carefully, able to hear those rattling noises moving towards a higher floor.

It seemed like no matter how stupid these monsters were, as long as Kieran continued to move up, they would be exterminated, so gathering up to a single spot would increase their survivability.

Yet it was what Kieran wanted!

This office building was the tallest in this city, but the middle and lower part of the building had trouble getting sunlight because of the shadows cast by neighbouring buildings.

However, the blockage would be removed at the highest floor.

Kieran diligently used the mirrors to destroy the monsters, because other than allowing the monsters to be familiar with his attacking pattern, hence numbing them, he was also trying to create an environment where he could annihilate every single one of them once and for all.

Kieran set up all the mirrors on the 41st floor to point at the stairs leading up, then walked to the window covered in goo, pulled out [Acard Blade], and sliced everything off, allowing the sunlight to come in. He then opened a window and nimbly climbed upwards from the outside, like a monkey.

A leap later, Kieran silently arrived at the rooftop.

Kieran could finally get a clear view over the city from the vantage point, the sun even more blinding from up here!

He raised both his hands and two [Gordor’s Chain] extended out into 3.5 meters illusive chains.

The chains wriggled like a lively snake before the chains started to smash the glass windows on the rooftop.

Despite the glasses being reinforced with metal, [Gordor’s Chain] whipped it to pieces with a single strike.

The goo might be a little troublesome but it couldn’t stop [Gordor’s Chain]’s whipping.

Floor after floor, [Gordor’s Chain] smashed every single glass window from the rooftop all the way down to the 41st floor. The gooey net protecting the glass was whipped to pieces as well.

Those monsters scattered in panic but their running and jumping could not outspeed [Gordor’s Chain] whipping.

The skinless monsters were destroyed by direct sunlight. Most of the monsters were the dog-like skinless ones; a few were the huge ones who Kieran killed outside the office building.

The huge monsters cried in agony, struggled as hard as they could and trying to escape to a safe spot, but none of what they did worked.

The bright sunlight forced them out of hiding, tormenting them under the sunlight as they welcomed death.

However, they weren’t the ones who suffered the most.

The most tormented one was a tree-like monster on the 50th floor.

The monster had a tree trunk as body but had no leaves at all. Thin branches, as long as four to five meters, grew from the trunk and at the end of the branches were its ‘fruit’

The ‘fruit’ had noses and eyes, like a real person.

There were men and women, old and young, and after the sunlight shone in, these ‘fruits’ cried and wailed in pain from their abstract mouth.

Spirit authentication notifications popped up on Kieran’s vision one after another, but the wails and cries were ineffective against Kieran.

The sunlight, however, was super effective against the tree trunk.

Bang Bang Bang!

A series of bangs happened, all the ‘fruit’ bursting, spraying juices all over the place and when the juices touched the floor, it produced a sizzling noise like it was corrosive acid.

The tree trunk withered quickly and when it had collapsed completely, a golden box appeared inside it.