—30 minutes ago.
Theo waited while holding his breath.
"The Grandmaster will be glad after he knew your feat."
"Hahaha, does that means I am one of you now?"
"As long as the Grandmaster agreed."
Roygerd was having a short conversation with someone before he finally left. Before Roygerd reached the corridor where Theo was hiding, Theo entered a room to avoid meeting him.
He waited in the stifling silence until the echoing footsteps finally faded into nothingness.
Carefully, Theo opened the door. He checked the corridor. Finally, Roygerd had left.
But just to be safe, Theo waited until the next 5 minutes before he rushed toward the room Roygerd had just came out before.
There were two men who had Gemgun with the same model as the one Theo had, so Theo couldn't take them down that easily this time.
He pulled the trigger two times, shot two men on the forehead, before he evading a return shot.
"Intruder! An intruder attacked us!" One of them shouted to warn other thugs.
Finally, Theo couldn't go as stealthy as before anymore. Sooner or later, more of them would come. He had to finish this quickly and get whatever was there inside the room.
But Theo maintained his calm.
He aimed the muzzle toward one of the thug with a Gemgun, shot him, before quickly do a side-step. A shot landed on the place where he just standing a moment ago.
'I really have to kill the gunner first!' Theo thought as he raised his Gemgun again.
However, a thug swung his sword down to him at that time, forcing Theo to abandoned the idea. He evaded the thug's swings as he racked his brain and analized the situation.
'Three killed. Seven left...'
When he looked at the corpse of the gunner he just killed before, he noticed that one of the thug was reaching his hand to take the Gemgun from him, which meant that the gunner number would be back to two soon.
Their second gunner shot at him again at that time. Fortunately, Theo was able to evade the shot once more.
"Tch."
And even more fighters were coming to attack him, hindering him from shooting their Gunner.
Realizing that the situation was only got worse the more time passed, Theo decided that it was the time to took a quick decision.
He measured the distance between the walls of the corridor. This corridor was cavernous, a stark contrast to his cramped quarters back home.
Normally, a person wouldn't be able to jump that long, not to mention used it as a stepping stone to got closer to their enemies' rear row. But with Theo's Levitation, he could nullified his body weight and the influence of gravity, which naturally increased the distance and height of his jump.
After evaded another shot and swing, Theo ran toward the wall at his left, jumped on it, applied Levitation on himself, then jumped to the other wall, then continued his jumps in a zig-zag pattern, until he reached the Gunners.
The second Gunner could only widened his eyes when he saw a punch approaching his face.
Theo's knuckles collided with their jaws with the force of a battering ram, the impact echoing through the cavernous hall.
As a Dungeon Diver who had cleared the 45th floor of a High-level Dungeon like The Beast Mountain, his strength was almost a superhuman power for a normal adults like those thugs. His punches were enough to end their lives.
The other thugs left were stunned after they saw Theo killed their comrades with a punch. One of them even kneeled on the floor when Theo picked their comrades' Gemguns' muzzle at them.
A series of suppressed 'whizz' later, they were all laying on the floor, all dead.
Theo only collected the two Gunners' G-bullets before he entered the room. They only had two G-bullets though, not as loaded as the one Theo knocked down before atop the wall. Added to it with three G-bullets left he had after shooting people until now, he bos possessed seven G-bullets, excluding the one he had just loaded into his Gemgun, with its 17 shoots left.
What greeted him inside was a short man who was reminding him with Goffekarg, but fatter. He was cowering under his table when Theo entered the room.
'So he is the Boss of The Rats. As expected, they're just a small, annoying Criminal organization. But what kind of relationship did they have with The Abyssal New Gate?'
"W-who are you?" He asked him.
And Theo responded with his Gemgun's muzzle.
"Give me every documents about your organization's illegal activities. Now, or die."
Roygerd could be back anytime soon, and other thugs may had been on their way to this room now after they heard the commotion, so he didn't want to waste any more time.
The man's flinched and trembled when he looked at the muzzle. But he hesitated and looked uncertain.
So Theo let him tasted the pain first with giving him a shot on the shoulder.
"Arrgghhh!!" The shouted in pain, clutching his bleeding shoulder.
"Be quick," said Theo, warning him that it was the last chance.
Finally, the man obeyed. He get out from under the table and began to rummaging the table drawers. He picked a pile of documents from there and placed it onto the table.
"H-here, sir," The man stuttered, clearly unwilling but didn't have any other choice.
Theo hummed as he picked the documents. He quick-checked the documents. Trafficking, slavery, and some other questionable transactions.
"Alright, that's enough."
The man sighed relievedly after he heard that, but then Theo aimed the muzzle at him and shot him.
At the same time as the shot killed the man, the door of the room was crushed from outside.
"Oh, I am late, hm? So unfortunate."
Theo immediately turned around and aimed the muzzle at the man who had just crushed the door of the room along with its wall with his bare fists.
The muscular man in tuxedo adjusted his necktie before he smiled at Theo.
"May I know your name? Since knowing people I deemed as strong are my base principle as a gentleman."
Roygerd Fotavich.
Theo's side lip twitched after he saw him.
'Ah, well, at least I already got what I needed to destroy the Rats,' thought Theo positively to cheer his dimming motivation.
Theo forced a smile out.
"That's right... Well, you can call me Abyss Crusher."
The man's face immediately turned cold the moment he heard these words.
"What a dead joke, just like the one who just uttered it. I, Roygerd Fotavich, now state, that I'll kill you here no matter what."
Theo responded with a shot.
"Bring it on."
...
Meanwhile, outside, Goffekarg and his group finally returned to the mansion.
His subordinate was just about to told his fellow The Rats's member about what had happened to them, but then they heard a shattering explosion from the mansion.
They exchanged confused glances, disbelief written all over their faces.
'Which madman dare to attack our base!?' They all thought of the same thing
All of them immediately rushed back into the building.
The commotion came from the fourth floor. But as they finally arrived at the scene, they immediately wanted to run away.
Two men were fighting. But not fighting normally. They were fighting like two destroyer. One was an embodiment of strength, capable of crushing walls with his physical prowess. While the other one was like a slimy Human, jumping to the ceiling, walls, and floor like his body was not made of flesh, but of feather—feather that was armed with a Gemgun, shooting with unbelivable precision.
It was Roygerd and Theo.
"Wh-who are those two!?" Goffegard asked his subordinate.
They could only identified Theo as the boy they had failed to capture before, while not a single of them recognized Roygerd. And it's normal, since the Boss of the Rats, the man Theo had just killed previously, only let some selected minority out of his subordinates to know about The Rats's relationship with The Abyssal New Gate.
And unfortunately for Goffekarg, he was not one of the selected ones, even if the Boss was his brother.
Theo landed just behind them at that time to reload his Gemgun.
"Tch. His Magic truly is tough," He muttered, before he looked at Goffekarg's group. "You better get out of this place immediately. If you don't want to get killed by that bull."
Roygerd then arrived. His soles holed the floor as he stopped just before them.
Then, before they could even say anything, the man immediately grabbed the head of one of them, before throwing him like a bowling ball toward Theo. Theo casually evaded the body, but the man Roygerd threw away at him was dead as the result, his body splattered on the wall.
Goffekarg's group's faces instantly turned pale after they saw the tragic end of their comrade. Without wasting any more time, they ran away.
"Weak and annoying, akin to rats..." said Roygerd while watching them flee.
"Well, that's why they called themselves The Rats," Theo replied, before aimed the muzzle of his Gemgun back to Roygerd.
The bigger man's eyes narrowed at the pistol.
"Why insisted in using that weak weapon? You wouldn't be able to hurt me with that."
Theo smiled in response.
"Who knows, right? Perhaps..."
Then he pulled the trigger, sending the elemental bolt to Roygerd.
"It will turned out to be worked if I kept shooting."
The bolt perfectly landed Roygerd's forehead, but no hole was made there, only a slightly reddened skin. While it was indeed didn't do any damage to him, Roygerd still feel irritated after continuously receiving Theo's shots. His cold eyes told everything.
"Haha! Unfortunately, I couldn't 'one shot, one kill,' you with this."
"I'll kill you!"
Roygerd launched his body forward, his fist slowly turned into red like a hot steel as he swung it down.
With a boom, the floor was exploded by his punch. Still, not matter how strong his strength was, if he couldn't even hit his target, then what even was that strength for?
An elemental bolt hit Roygerd's forehead again.
His killing intent surged, burning the air.
"Uwarghh!"
He began to smashing everything as he chasing Theo around. From cooridor to corridor, room after room.
However, this chase that felt endless, actually, was happened intentionally. Orchestrated solely by Theo. With the sole goal was to destroy The Rats's base and attract the attention of the Dungeon City's guards. He himself couldn't destroy a mansion by himself, but Roygerd with his Body Strengthening Magic could.
'More, more, more! Destroy even more of it!'
Theo was escatic inside while kept showing calm face outside. Manipulating someone never felt pleasant, but if the 'someone' in question was a villain? It was guilt-free!
Panicked shouts and yells was filled the fourth and the third floors. All the thugs were in disarray and could only running away like a chicken without a head while Theo leading Roygerd to smashing everything.
If things continued like this, surely, the mansion would collapse.
Before that, Theo had to evacuate Tizmilly and others first.
So, just as they arrived at the second floor after crushing most things in the fourth and third floors, Theo stopped running.
"Finally tired of running around?" Roygerd asked him with cold eyes.
Theo shrugged. "A little..."
They locked eyes.
Roygerd with his fists and his Magic, Body Strengthening.
And Theo with a Gemgun, mini pistol calliber, one shot left, with only one G-bullet spare in his pocket, and his Magic, Levitation.
Finally, Theo decided that it was the right moment to kill Roygerd.
The air around his changed as his leasure pose was replaced by a more deadly posture, like a Hunter that finally decided to hunt his prey.
Roygerd's left eyelid twitched.
Drop of sweats gathered on his cold face.
Then—
Theo took a step forward. No, it's not a step. It was more like a rocket launch than a step.
Levitation combined with his explosive muscle prowess.
That was the result.
Roygerd's pupils contracted. The image of a punch mirrored on it. The punch hit him in the face. It was fast. And heavy. Even throwing him away like he was nothing, crushing onto walls before finally stopped.
The punch hadn't actually damaged him that much, but it could throw him away even if he had used all his weight to anchor his body on the spot.
Theo had completely caught Roygerd off guard here.
Then Theo appeared again and immediately shot him on the eye. Fortunately, Roygerd could react fast enough now, and could block the bolt with his palm. Otherwise, he would lose half of his vision.
Roygerd stared when Theo pulled a new G-bullet from his pocket.
Before he could reload his Gemgun, however, Roygerd had already slammed his fists onto the floor with his all. For some reason, he didn't want Theo to reload that weapon, which was supposed to be useless against him until now.
The floors gave up before his might in an instant, collapsed a big hole not only on the second floor, but also on the first floor.
The two then fell and landing amidst the rusted chains and iron maidens of a sunless torture chamber.