Daniel stood in the sky, above the ruins of the completely destroyed palace, watching his Fallen still engaged in battle with the remaining eleven Rank A opponents.
Actually, their number had now decreased to eight, with three of them already wiped out.
"They say thereâs always a reward after hardship... Eleven Rank A individuals I can turn into Fallens isnât a bad prize," a smile appeared on his face.
It had been about ten minutes since Velkanâs death. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, he couldnât turn him into a Fallen, and his plan was completely ruined.
The reason? Even he didnât know. In fact, he was met with a notification he had never seen before:
[ The targetâs existence has been completely erased and cannot be converted into a Fallen. ]
He had no idea what "erasure of existence" actually meant. No matter how much he asked the Mother System, it didnât bother to respond.
So he had no choice but to let it go. On the other hand, considering how the palace had been completely destroyed, and all the noise and chaos caused, officials, guards, and police were surely already on their way here.
They were probably en route already, and using that as an excuse, he had sent Serys to the Valenberg familyâs palace to leave the city by carriage and wait for him outside.
He also sent Elarion as a guard, mostly so she could use Fallen Step if needed.
Of course, they had found the weapon, and Serys had placed it in a storage ring specifically made to hold it.
As for why he didnât go himself â that was obvious. He couldnât just abandon all those potential high-quality Fallen targets.
Without delay or wasting time, he summoned his sword and charged at them.
The remaining Rank As frowned as they saw the masked man attacking them and tried to resist.
However, most of them were at mid or early Rank A and didnât stand a chance against the monster that was charging toward them.
On top of that, with the help of the Fallens, it didnât take long for all of them to be slaughtered. Some tried to flee, but Daniel had already sealed the area.
How could they possibly escape? The main reason city officials and guards had taken so long to notice the noise and fighting here was because the area was sealed off.
After killing them all, he received a massive amount of EXP and managed to reach mid-Rank B â in fact, he pushed even further, getting close to the peak of Rank B.
He dropped a single drop of his blood on each of them and turned all of them into Fallens. Naturally, he didnât forget about the palace guards who were Rank B and converted them too.
He didnât have time to check the status panels of the new Rank A Fallens â surely, theyâd have some good skills.
However, he gave a quick glance at his new Rank B Fallens. None of them had any notable skills, which wasnât surprising.
After all, they were just a bunch of bandits. People like them rarely had unique or powerful skills.
So instead of copying any abilities, he chose to absorb 10% of the EXP from these Rank Bs.
With the 10% he gained from all the new Fallens, combined with the EXP from the battles, his power grew tremendously.
In fact, his combat strength now reached the ceiling of Rank A. If he were to face Velkan again, he might be able to defeat him alone, without help, and without using the Apocalypse skill.
Then he glanced at the number of Fallens he had, and his eyebrows raised slightly in surprise.
[ Fallens: 133 / 300 ]
He hadnât expected the number to grow this much. But on second thought, it wasnât even that many â he definitely needed to find a way to increase it.
After that, he checked the storage rings of the Rank As. Inside were gold coins, treasures, and various items.
There was enough to push his wealth over a billion gold coins. Unfortunately, there werenât any Chaos Crystals.
Still, better than nothing, right? He really wanted to check Velkanâs storage ring, but couldnât find it anywhere.
It was probably inside the palace, but that place was now completely gone â buried under rubble. He didnât have the time or patience to search for it.
He glanced at his army of Fallens and canceled their summons.
Then, he removed the seal from the area and teleported to where Elarion and Serys were using Fallen Step.
"Kyaa!" A sudden scream rang out.
"Why are you screaming?" Daniel scratched his ears a bit.
"Could you not just appear behind someone like that?" Serys sighed as she spoke.
He just shrugged, clearly not caring much.
"Anyway, no problems, right?" she asked as she deactivated the item that disguised her appearance.
Her face slowly returned to its original form, along with her clothes.
They were currently in a forest, more than twenty minutes away from the city. There was no longer any need to hide their identities.
"No problems, fortunately. What about you? When you went to get the carriage, didnât the head butler or anyone else try to stop you? Or get suspicious?" Daniel asked as the mask hiding his face disappeared.
"Well, of course they were suspicious. Some guards tried to stop me, but not because I was suddenly leaving for no reason."
"Oh? Something else happened?"
"Apparently, that old man and Celestina survived and told the Valenberg family what happened. The Valenbergs warned the head butler and the palace guards in the city, telling them to capture us no matter what," Serys said, laughing.
"I see. Fortunately, they didnât see our real faces. Also, since their daughter and the old man are still alive, I doubt theyâll pursue it much... unless they become suspicious because someone can imitate identities so well," Daniel nodded.
"No need to worry about that either. The Valenberg family isnât so free that theyâd focus all their attention on something like this â especially when their daughter is completely unharmed."
"Anyway, now that weâre done here and got the weapon back, what do you plan to do? Coming back with me to the Central Plains, or...?"