"Fuck! I'm freezing. I cannot stand this, I'm going to use Arch energy to warm myself "? Inside Gerty's manor, one of the soldiers patrolling through the corridors complained to his colleague.

"Keep it together man, the captain ordered us not to waste energy warming ourselves" the soldier who complained reluctantly nodded rubbing his hands together.

"Gary that lucky bastard was assigned to the hall where they have that cozy fireplace, why didn't someone build a fireplace here?"

"Fireplace in a corridor near the servants' latrine, yeah a great idea" the guard replied with a voice overflowing with sarcasm.

Creak!

"What is that?!" The two soldiers immediately stopped their chatter when they heard a creak coming from above them. Their bodies tensed as their gripes on their spears tightened,

Squeak

Squeak

Shortly, they heard the squealing sound of a rat.

"It must be a damn rat"

"Shit I nearly wet my pants," the soldier who was complaining about the fireplace said, letting out a breath of a sigh.

"Hey it's time, look normal,"? the soldier said suddenly standing straight without leaning on the wall behind him.

The other one also did the same and quickly hid the discomfort of the cold from his face. A few minutes after they were standing straight, a group of three people in full iron plate and chainmail walked towards them from the far end of the corridor. The two soldiers felt the cold in the area disappear as an overwhelming pressure made their breathing heavy.

When the trio of iron-plated warriors got closer to the two guards, they stared at the two guards and the area for a moment before walking away from them.

Only when the trio disappeared from their sight, the two soldiers could breathe normally.

"Just their presence is enough to make breathing hard"

"No shit, they are Core Formation level 10 warriors, what do you expect?"

Creak!

"It's that damn rat aga-" before the soldier could finish his sentence, a figure leaped down from above through the ceiling and stuck a dagger into the soldier's throat.

The figure did not give the time for the other soldier to react, in lightning-fast, the figure took out the bloodied dagger from the soldier's throat and stabbed the other one straight through the eye, ending his life swiftly. After ending the two soldiers' lives, the figure dragged their bodies quickly into the latrine behind. The figure then pulled away the dark clothes as the pool of blood on the ground reflected an image of a young girl with brown hair.

"I hope this is the last time I have to kill" Arria stared at the two dead bodies in the ground with eyes full of pity. She then walked out of the latrine before sticking an out of order sign on the door.

It had been four years since she became an apprentice of a Grim Reaper called Dagger. He was not only her mentor but also her master, the one who holds absolute power over her, in simple words, she was his slave.

Unlike many other masters, he gave Arria a way to earn her freedom, which was to kill his targets for him, and eventually, he would release her from the slave bond. Although he did not tell how many people she had to kill, it was still better than having no hope to get her freedom back. Plus, the fire of vengeance inside her made her do anything to kill general Quintus who invaded their homeland and captured her brothers as slaves.

She never wanted any of this but to rescue her brothers, she needed to become strong and from what she heard from Dagger, she was blessed with a godly ability that let her completely mask the Arch energy radiating from her body which would prevent the cultivators and arrays from detecting her.

She still had much to learn about this ability and use it to its maximum potential. According to Dagger, Gerty was running a slave mine in Kethen and said killing Gerty would save hundreds of southerners from becoming slaves in the Elon continent.

He growled in pain and slowly looked up in the direction of the voice to see a tall figure wearing red robes and a clown mask.

On his chest dangled a medallion with a wolf head etched on its surface.

"Master" Arrira bowed deeply towards the clown-faced man and stepped aside from Gerty.

"Hehehehehehe, you did good my student, hehehehehe" His laughter filled the silent room with wickedness and sent a cold chill running through Gerty's spine.

"Who...who...are...you? What what do you...want?" Images of his cousin's body and the victims of Lucifer flashed across his mind making him think the clown is the infamous Lucifer.

"Are...are...you Lucifer?" Gerty crawled back in fear,

"Hehehehe, Lucifer? Me? People call me Dagger" In a blink of an eye, the clown took out three long jade daggers from nowhere. He played with them by throwing and catching the daggers like in a circus.

"Don't worry about Lucifer, hehehehe. You are perfectly safe from him or her although I don't think Lucifer's woman hehehehe"

"Release me! Do you know who I am?" After seeing he was not kidnapped by Lucifer, Gerty was not as afraid as he was a second ago.

"Of course I know who you are, didn't you hear what I called you a moment ago?" Dagger stepped closer to Gerty while playing with his daggers.

"Although it's me who's going to kill you, it's Lucifer who would take the blame, hehehehehe"

"What-"

Chill!

Gerty's voice was interrupted by the sound of shattering glass. Dagger immediately stopped playing with the daggers while Arria quickly took out a dagger just like the one in the clown's hand.

"ah..ah...AHHHHHHH!"? Dagger turned his head to see Gerty's screaming in horror, his face turned extremely pale. Dagger did see fear in Gerty's eyes earlier but now the fear in his eyes was nothing like before.

"Go...go away!" He was about to approach Gerty when he saw Arria frantically singing her dagger in the air.

"Hehehehe, what's happening?" Dagger was confused seeing his student act like a maniac. He looked around the room, scanning every dark corner. While he was scanning the room, he felt something moving on his shoulder,

"Whoa?!" He quickly grabbed the thing moving on his shoulder to see a flickering spider caught between his fingers.

"You gave me quite a shock spidey, heheheh"? he stared at the spider. The spider however suddenly exploded into white mist,

"Damn, an exploding spider" without his knowing, he inhaled the white mist and began to cough.

"Cough"

"Cough"

"Cough"

"What (cough)... what's...hehehe...(cough)"

"Welcome to hell, Clown" a terrifying unearthly voice appeared out of nowhere, making Dagger stumble back.