Millennium Witch.

Chapter 116-115- Playing the Fool
Because of her lack of knowledge about "Neon Nightmare" and its "Silver Medal Assassins," Yvette was unaware of how much fame and gossip her success in killing the Neon Nightmare assassins would bring her in the future.

From her perspective, the assassination attempt was hardly thrilling. She doubted that even if she stood still and let the assassin attack her, he might not be able to break through all four layers of her crimson armor.

After all, this is a product of the stacking strategy. If we really calculate its defensive power, it should be much stronger than a single 10-level spell. It's just unclear what the exact equivalent level is.

Yvette then began looting the assassin's body, obtaining several intact iron rods and an 8W-specification magic terminal.

She hacked into the terminal on the spot and began examining the information inside. Besides a set of detailed information about magic and a "creative summary," she found several activated, sealed spell formulas. Although most were elemental spell formulas and useless to her, one in particular, called "Shadow Escape," caught her attention.

This is a spell centered on "light and shadow magic," allowing the user to blend into the shadows and conceal themselves—a must-have for assassins. Although it's encrypted and sealed, making the original rune set virtually impossible to trace, it can still be used directly without issue.

Yvette decided to keep the terminal. She had originally planned to sell it, but the "Shadow Escape" effect was quite good, and it was a deeper realm of "Light and Shadow Magic" that she didn't understand, so it was worth keeping.

As for the complete rune sequence and creation summary of "Spiking Magic", well, it's a bit of a waste.

Although after glancing at the creative summary of Dead Spike, one can sense that this spike magic was a unique skill he painstakingly developed, even burning himself out, and it was also his greatest reliance on becoming a silver-level assassin, which he regarded as the most important and proudest achievement of his life.

But for Yvette, it was truly the most awkward thing. Although its piercing power was good and its magic consumption was low, it required a special magical device to use, which was extremely troublesome. She would rather spend more magic power and use wind magic instead.

Let's keep it for now and sell it on the dark web later. Hopefully, we can make a lot of money from it, which will also be a way of respecting the assassin's hard work and dedication.

……

at the same time.

While Yvette was assessing how much the intellectual property rights for the Thread Magic could fetch...

Amidst the drizzling rain, in the quiet, dark wilderness outside Shalin Town, the figures of many outsiders suddenly appeared.

Most of these were ordinary people, but they were armed, and a small number had undergone cybernetic modifications, their prosthetic eyes flashing red. In addition, some shuttles were quietly launched into the sky around Salin Town, patrolling everywhere to ensure that not a single rat could escape from any corner.

This was the team that "Fire Ghost" Colby had assembled using his connections, uniting with other local gangs. There were more than 80 people in total. They used a shuttle and a small number of people to block all the exits of Salin Town, while the rest filed in and headed toward the house where the two little girls were located, which their informants had already discovered.

The supreme commander of this joint operation was one of Colby's most formidable men, nicknamed "Tiger" Balk, a muscular man who looked like he had been given many rune potions.

His role was somewhat similar to Bryce's second-in-command, "Black Sword" Ocasio, in charge of the vast majority of Colby's violent operations. Although other gangs also sent leaders, given Balker's formidable reputation for his fists in various arenas, they all willingly accepted his temporary command.

"Eric, where did Eugene and the others go? Any results?" Balk asked into his walkie-talkie as he stood under the slanting glow of the streetlights at the entrance to Salin Town, with his subordinate holding an umbrella beside him.

Colby and Balk owned businesses in Salin, yes, those casinos where no one survived. The manager in charge of guarding those establishments was named Eugene, one of Balk's underlings.

Since they didn't usually make a point of contacting each other, Colby and Balk only discovered two days ago, when they were organizing the team, that everyone in the casino, including Eugene, was missing.

This was a big deal, but as the real owner of those small casinos, Balk's first reaction wasn't that Eugene and his group had been murdered, but that they had all absconded with the money. He was furious and wasted a lot of time until he asked Eugene's family and learned that they had simply disappeared, which made Balk breathe a sigh of relief.

So, while he was here to catch those two little girls, Balk also planned to take a look at the casino and investigate the reason for Eugene and the others' disappearance.

"I don't know, Second Brother. The surveillance cameras were all destroyed, but I didn't see any signs of a struggle. It's like they just left on their own. But I logged into the account, and the money is still there; it hasn't been transferred." A strange voice came from the walkie-talkie. "Second Brother, I have a feeling this is a bit eerie."

"As long as the money is there, that's fine." Balk didn't care at all where Eugene was. Since he was gone, he could just replace him with someone else.

Then, just as Balk was about to send his subordinates to the back of the target location to prevent the two little girls from escaping by climbing over the wall, he suddenly heard a shrill scream over the walkie-talkie.

"Eric? Eric?" Balk was startled and called out hurriedly, but received no response for a long time.

He couldn't help but look around and noticed that his other subordinates also had shocked expressions on their faces.

"The casino is nearby, let's go check on Eric first," Balk ordered.

Soon, after passing through several alleys around the town of Salin, they arrived at a large courtyard where the casino was located. Balk did not see Eric and the others. Perhaps due to the rain, there was no blood nearby. The ground was wet, and the puddles were like mercury mirrors, reflecting the gray sky.

Standing outside, Balk ordered half of the gang—about 30 men—into the checkpoint, while the rest investigated from the outside and blocked any escape routes for suspicious individuals. He himself stood under an umbrella held up for him by his deputy, lit a cigarette, and awaited reports from the others.

The raindrops pattered on the umbrella, and listening to the thunder in the sky, he waited quietly for a while. Feeling that it was about time, he shouted, intending to call the investigators out of the building.

But after he shouted that, the house fell silent, and then red lights lit up, looking like countless bloodthirsty eyes staring outside.

Balk frowned. As the renowned "Tiger," he was naturally not intimidated by this situation; at most, he became a little more vigilant.

Then, a bolt of lightning streaked across the night sky, its blinding light illuminating the interior of the house and turning everyone's faces deathly pale. Balk finally saw the situation inside clearly: the pairs of red dots all belonged to the gangsters he had just ordered in, but strangely, they all looked bizarre—their expressions stiff, their pupils cloudy, resembling corpses more than living people.

"Eric?!" Balk was stunned when he saw one of the people's faces clearly. "Are you alright?"

But Eric didn't answer him. He walked out of the room with a blank expression and staggered towards Balk. This unusual behavior made Balk feel extremely uncomfortable, and he immediately shouted, "Stand still! Did you hear me? Or I'll shoot you!"

Eric ignored his voice and continued advancing. Left with no other choice, Balk raised the rune pistol at his waist. Thanks to the rune potion, his physical combat strength was actually slightly greater; he possessed immense strength and his skin was almost like steel. However, the rune pistol was more convenient for fighting ordinary people.

With his gun still aimed at Eric's head, Balk stared at him with suspicion and uncertainty, and then he saw a scene he would never forget - Eric's head suddenly split open, turning into six fleshy petals with a wriggling central suction cup, like a fleshy flower blooming.

"Fuck you!" Balk exclaimed, and together with his second-in-command, they fired wildly, quickly tearing the monster to shreds and leaving it lying on the ground.

But then, more stiff figures appeared in the rainy night. Some came from indoors, and some were his subordinates who had just been sent out to investigate the surrounding area. The only normal people seemed to be "Tiger" Balk and his deputy.

"Second Brother... I... let's go quickly..." The deputy was almost crying, his teeth chattering. He had never seen such an outrageous scene before; it was like he had stumbled onto the set of a horror movie.

Balk was also deeply shocked, a chill creeping up his spine. Although he was strong, his mental defenses were not so strong. Watching his subordinate, who had been perfectly fine just moments before, have his head turned into a bloody mess right before his eyes was a shock that was hard to bear.

"Let's go! This place is haunted! It's not fit for humans!" Seeing the approaching crowd, Balk took off running, quickly pulling out a special communicator. "Shalin Town is haunted! It might be the work of a cult! We need to inform the boss!"

Due to the demands of the human trafficking industrial park, the area surrounding Salin Town lacks network coverage, forcing Balk to rely on a dedicated communicator for real-time communication. After "Fire Ghost" Colby's questioning voice rang out, Balk quickly exclaimed, "Haunted! Boss! This place turns people into ghosts!"

"What...are you talking about?" Colby didn't understand.

He was still waiting for good news from both sides. The assassination of "Nameless" and the capture of the two little girls were two things that needed to be done at the same time. He had to succeed at least one of them, otherwise he would be in big trouble.

"Damn, this isn't nonsense, it's true! I don't know why, but Eric and the others, everyone, suddenly turned into monsters and are chasing me! There must be a trap!" Balk said anxiously as he ran away.

He already regretted it. How could the general's mission be simple? He shouldn't have gotten involved in this kind of thing with Colby. Wouldn't it have been better to just honestly catch piglets and make money?

After running a few steps in the rain, Balk and his deputy left the alleyway and reached the town's main street. He wiped the rain from his face and looked ahead, only to see a little girl with flowing silver hair, dressed in a white dress and barefoot, standing gracefully on a streetlamp at the crossroads, smiling at him. She had an extremely beautiful face, which should have been alluring, but her dark red pupils were filled with mockery and cruelty, making her appear incredibly eerie in the current atmosphere, like a female ghost.

Upon seeing the suddenly appearing silver-haired little girl, Balk suddenly flew into a rage and roared, "Stop playing tricks on me!"

Immediately, runes shimmered on his body, and he leaped up, lunging towards the silver-haired little girl, seemingly convinced that she was the source of all the strangeness.

However, seeing the "tiger" Balk pounce on her, the girl's smile grew even wider.

Then, the deputy standing in the middle of the road was stunned to see his invincible second brother "Tiger" Balk suddenly disintegrate in mid-air and turn into a huge fleshy flower that bloomed in the night rain. Every petal and every muscle fiber was stretching out its body to its fullest extent.

"What happened? Is anyone there? Where are you, Balk?" The communicator, which had fallen into the puddle, was still transmitting Colby's bewildered voice.

But his second-in-command, named "Wright," had no answer to him. Before his eyes, a huge, fleshy monster descended from the sky, blocking his escape route, and extended a tentacle-like tongue from its mouth to coil around him.

The pungent smell permeated the rain and mist, seeping into his nostrils. The deputy, regaining his senses, began to scream and beg for mercy in terror, but no matter how much he struggled, he could not stop those turbine-shaped, fine teeth from getting closer and closer to him.

In the last second before his consciousness was consumed by pain, he saw the silver-haired little girl yawn sleepily.

(End of this chapter)