After leaving Elianor's house, Lyria headed toward the tallest building in the area: Caius Valerian's home.
She pulled up her hood to cover herself and then sneaked in to observe the situation.
After taking in the sight from above a tree, Lyria felt like this was truly a disaster.
The fight was still ongoing, with various people casting spells or slashing at each other. She even saw skeleton summons hacking away at mortals.
There were countless corpses lying everywhere within the courtyard.
After observing the battlefield for a short while, Lyria roughly understood the situation.
The necromancers likely knew that since it was the tallest building, it meant there would be a lot of people inside. And since the building clearly looked decorative from the outside, it signaled wealthy occupants—meaning lots of Mana Wielders and, finally, lots of wealth to loot. Taking all this into account, tens of necromancer groups had all targeted this tall and attractive building.
Lyria observed the situation and felt that she might have disappointed Caius. Hundreds of dead bodies of both mortals and Mana Wielders were lying everywhere, with at least seventy percent of the corpses belonging to Valerian family members, while the remaining thirty percent were of necromancers.
Currently, the Valerian team had around twenty or so Mana Wielders left, while the necromancer team had around thirty, with almost everyone at some stage of Rank 3.
The Valerian team was losing without a doubt.
Lyria couldn't understand why the mortals of this family—including servants, workers, and so on—were involved in a battle between Mana Wielders. But she wasn't a fool; she was a lot smarter and more realistic than Livy, at least. Furthermore, after living over half a decade with Eric, admiring and loving him, both girls had invariably picked up and integrated various characteristics of his into themselves.
Lyria could easily guess by seeing the mortal corpses that this family had forced the 'useless' to be a bit more useful by drawing the human skeletons' attention toward themselves, or by acting as a human wall against the necromancers' attacks.
Lyria shook her head and could only sigh.
What's done was done. It was time for her to act properly and fill her pockets with more wealth before anything else—that was the most important thing to do!
She did a thorough survey of the space pouches on the ground while ignoring the painful cries of the surviving humans.
After getting the complete picture, she nodded to herself and jumped down from the tree.
And so, a typhoon joined the battle.
At first, people truly thought it was a natural typhoon that had appeared out of nowhere. Before either team could turn to study this strange phenomenon, five necromancers died. Only then did everyone notice the appearance of a hooded individual who was appearing and disappearing like a ghost, and with each appearance, one life was tragically lost. They didn't notice that their space pouches were also disappearing along with their lives.
"C-Cloaked Demon!"
Eventually, someone from the Valerian team noticed the distinct demonic individual. After all, not that many legends could appear within just a span of two days.
If such a demonic person appeared with a similar appearance and with such overwhelming power, everyone would invariably connect it with the event of the previous night.
A few did notice that this 'Cloaked Demon' was actually a woman and started doubting if it was truly the legend of the last night or someone else entirely, though most of them didn't care. Only a demonic creature like the Cloaked Demon could be so abnormal and powerful.
Perhaps the psycho Cloaked Demon had decided to change his gender overnight? Possible...
Among the Valerian team was a tall, well-built man wearing expensive and shining peak Tier 1 armor, who was entirely covered and had the least amount of injury.
His expression completely changed upon hearing the words 'Cloaked Demon'. Instead of shock or rejoicing that the demon was only slaying the necromancers, his eyes turned into deep-seated hatred.
He noticed that everyone was distracted by the situation, so he removed his helmet, brought out a strange liquid from his space pouch, and applied it inside his helmet. After that, he silently waited for the Cloaked Demon to complete whatever she was trying to do.
The necromancer teams, which were filled with mostly Rank 3s and could be considered a very powerful group anywhere below Master Rank, were completely horrified at this moment.
'This Cloaked Demon is truly a demon! With the speed she is killing, probably we all will die in less than a minute!' were the thoughts of every necromancer present.
A female necromancer who was at late-stage Rank 3 immediately yelled, "EVERYONE GATHER TOGETHER NOW! We can only defeat this demon if we are together!"
Her name was Deleone, a very powerful necromancer mage dressed in a tattered, dark blue robe, with stringy black hair and piercing green eyes.
Deleone wasn't the leader of this entire group, but she was one of the strongest and most well-recognised necromancers on the scene, so everyone promptly followed her advice. They could also see this Cloaked Demon was truly unstoppable. If they stayed alone, they would all die without even being able to use their spells, summons, or any of their trump cards.
After the remaining survivors gathered together, Deleone decided to 'reason' with the Cloaked Demon, but when she located her, she was completely speechless. Even she, who was called the Cruel Witch, felt her eyelids twitching continuously. She wanted to laugh but couldn't due to the horrifying speed of the Cloaked Demon.
Currently, the Cloaked Demon was running everywhere in the empty field like a tornado, completely ignoring the gathering of the two teams. She was busy disappearing and reappearing over dead necromancers' bodies, picking up 'something' and then disappearing again.
It was clear to everyone what she was picking up.
"CLOAKED DEMON!" Deleone thundered to get her attention; however, the Cloaked Demon completely ignored her and continued to rob the helpless bodies.
Seeing this, Deleone whispered to the necromancers around her in a low but heavy tone, "Prepare your strongest spells, scrolls, or whatever you have, and don't hesitate to fire when I tell you to."
The other necromancers also wanted to ridicule the Cloaked Demon, seeing how desperately she was looting the corpses, but they absolutely couldn't! Funny situation aside, just the fact that this Cloaked Demon was so ridiculously fast that even their late-stage Rank 3s could barely perceive her silhouette was a huge problem.
This was the scariest individual they had ever seen or heard of who wasn't a Master Rank. In fact, they weren't certain if the Cloaked Demon was a Master Rank or not, but since the three necromancer Master Ranks were currently attacking the City Lord of this city, any other Master Rank, if hidden, should have also gone to support him. Otherwise, after he dies, another sole Master Rank would face the same fate as the City Lord. Also, no Master Rank would want to lose face by robbing mere Apprentice Ranks' corpses—at least, they wouldn't do it in the open. So, this Cloaked Demon was a complete mystery to them.
For now, all the necromancers stopped giving it further thought and pulled out their scrolls, or started casting whatever advanced spells they knew of, while the few with zombies and summons called them to their sides.
Right at this moment, Lyria disappeared and went straight toward the remaining live necromancers.
She had no interest in trying out so many necromancers' trump cards. It had already been some time since Eric and Livy had left, and they might finish their work at any time, so she should be beside Puchi, ready to leave.
The necromancers thought the Cloaked Demon would continue with her corpse looting and ignore them; however, unfortunately for them, she appeared just when everyone was focused on their spells or attacks. Thus, none were able to form any resistance.
Some were indeed cautious, such as Deleone and a few others; however, just being cautious wouldn't help them in front of Lyria's Whirlwind Sprint along with her masterpieces, the Sun and Moon daggers.
Heads started rising high into the sky before the victims even noticed they had lost their bodies.
Deleone shrieked in panic and horror; however, her head flew the exact same way as the others.
None managed to produce any resistance whatsoever.
It was like nearly twenty or so people lost their heads all at the same time. That small area became like a blood fountain, rising high and mighty.
After killing the gathered necromancers along with the few Rank 1 and 2 zombies, Lyria put away her daggers inside their sheaths and then speedily gathered all her hard-earned money before the items got bloodied.
Looking at heads flying as if they were competing on who could jump the highest, the Valerian team halted their breathing in dread; even their blood betrayed them and avoided reaching above their necks.
They all had pallid faces; some couldn't help but take a few steps back and retch.
Although they hated the necromancers for killing so many and disturbing their peace, watching twenty or so people dying almost instantly and with such brutality gave them a new, unforgettable nightmare.
They all couldn't help but agree wholeheartedly with whoever had coined 'them' as the 'Cloaked Demon'—this was truly a demonic entity! Even the necromancers were much more realistic and down-to-ground!
Even the bulky man—the head of the Valerian family—Jamal Valerian, had an ashen face under his helmet, but soon his expression tightened with conviction. He grasped a ball-like thing in his left palm, and only after feeling it through his gauntlet did he calm down.
Lyria quickly gathered all her earnings. Yet, no matter how much she wished to collect more wealth for their team, she simply couldn't bring herself to collect those trashy weapons and armor, no matter the tier.
She felt as if she was about to touch something filthy and then fill those inside her ring; she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
Perhaps it was her professionalism blocking her path to becoming truly rich… however, Eric had also once agreed and told them not to be so desperate. If they felt like it, then collect those; or else, it was fine to leave them for others—they also needed to eat some leftovers to survive.
Lyria stood in front of the twenty or so corpses and started thinking, hesitating whether to go and finish looting the other corpses around the area. She still hadn't finished looting all of them yet.
'Wouldn't that be too disgraceful? What would the rest of the Valerian family think? But then again, I was already doing so before...'
While Lyria was thinking deeply, she suddenly heard footsteps approaching from behind. It was a heavy sound, as if an extremely heavy person was trudging toward her. She knew well from the sound that some bulky man wearing heavy armor was walking toward her.
Lyria was not happy with it, as that meant there was something wrong with the guy. She was considered the infamous Cloaked Demon; whether they believed she was the same individual from last night or not didn't matter, as she was equally scary for any normal Apprentice Rank to approach casually. After all, there was no guarantee that she was a 'good' Cloaked Demon and wouldn't kill everyone, especially when the original Cloaked Demon had killed countless people indiscriminately, without consideration for who 'deserved' death or not.
Lyria turned her head sideways and glanced at the tall, strong-looking, fully plated armored man heading toward her.
Normally, her checking someone out just after she let so much blood flow would make any person flinch and turn back, or at least no longer press forward. Yet, this person kept moving toward her.
'It seems this guy really has something that he desperately wants to convey to me up close—a "Thank you," perhaps?'