As he felt only hostility emitting from her eyes, Amidel sighed and showed himself at last. He looked no different than last time, with a refined and kind looking expression, scholarly clothes and a small beard. He politely bowed to Lucy while smiling, he didn't feel like a Sovereign but like a mortal.

Even Lucy wasn't able to sense his Realm despite her superior stats, this only confirmed what Arthur told her. The person standing before her is not real and is merely part of the whole city, which is basically a complex and high-leveled formation. Of course, there exists a person named Kang Amidel, it's just that his real body is hidden in a secretive place.

"Would you join me in a tea session until your husband gets rid of the snake?"

His tone was devoid of any anger despite her unpolite attitude toward him. He had long since investigated the couple and knew more than most about Astria, however, he didn't dare go there personally for many reasons, mainly the retaliation of Arthur and Lucy if they discovered him.

Through their actions, Amidel clearly knew that they didn't wish for visitors to come to Astria, especially those kinds of visitors who create unnecessary trouble.

.......

A few kilometers away from Amidel's city, Arthur landed on a mountain top along with the captured woman. As he had another look at her, he noticed that her appearance changed into a bewitching young woman. She grew taller and had purple scales on the back of her neck, she even grew a long tail.

Even transforming into her real form wasn't sufficient to get rid of those black chains binding her body. They were crazily resistant and tough to break, in fact, she could barely breathe as they were tightening around her slim neck.

Ranka Hnach (Race: Heavenly Snake): Realm: Fusion Sovereign

Age : 79

Info : Daughter of the Grand Elder of the Heavenly Snake Clan. She is considered one of the three rising talents of the clan and is usually away from her home, following the orders of *********.

'Heavenly Snake Clan?'

Arthur remembered Zodiak mentioning this particular clan in one of his notes. The old man wasn't particularly fond of this clan, he even had a small feud with them which was resolved when he was powerful enough to face them.

Apparently, the Heavenly Snake Clan is situated in ILH MEG, a planet ruled by the fairies. Furthermore, this planet is considered a High-Realm and is one of the strongest, excluding the Divine Planet.

After going through his memories to check all the information he had on the Heavenly Snake Clan. Arthur focused his attention back to Ranka, the snake woman, and coldly said

"So, why would someone of your status bother to come all the way just to kill me? I'm really confused, why don't you enlighten me!"

As he said that, he weakened the grip of the chains thus letting her compose her breathing and speak out a few words.

However, the woman didn't recognize him as she glared at him hatefully while not understanding the meaning of his words.

"What? Did you forget about me already? How disappointing."

Arthur shook his head in disappointment then squatted down in front of her and stretched his hand, which vanished and was replaced by jet black darkness which frightened the woman.

He was covered wholly by malevolent black flames which made the woman finally guess his identity. As Arthur was ready to use [Dark Extraction] and forcefully read some of her memories, the snake woman finally gave up her pointless struggled and said

"W-wait wait! Please let me explain myself!"

At the last second, just when his hand was but an inch away from her head, it halted and was withdrawn. Seeing this, she breathed a sigh of relief as she managed to avoid turning into a vegetable. From the way he easily subdued her, she knew he was way stronger than her. Moreover, he was overly cautious so using a dimensional stone to escape isn't doable. She could only stall for time and try to make him spare her.

Arthur's sole eye started shining with blue light but this wasn't the end, he used [Griffin's Bloody Switch] to sacrifice a bit of Wisdom and add it into dexterity. His extraordinary hearing was magnified by another fold and that is while excluding the numerous hearing-related skills that were activated.

His ears were focused on her constantly beating heart while his eyes followed the flow of her internal and external energy. Any sudden fluctuation of either of them will prove that she's either lying or hiding something.

"I hate useless talks, tell me why did you try to kill me."

The first thing that he noticed was her accelerating heart rate but her flow of energy remained stable. She didn't take too much time to reply

"You had something I needed."

The last word she said caused a slight disruption in her flow of energy. Although her heart was accelerating due to fear or just to trick him, she couldn't trick his eyes.

Unhesitantly, Arthur manipulated the black chains which ruthlessly wrapped around her arm and tore it off causing huge amounts of blood to gush out. The woman groaned painfully but didn't scream from the unimaginable agony. She indeed has a strong will but it's not like Arthur cared.

"That will be the last time. One more lie and I shall steal your memories."

[Dark Extraction] is really useful in this situation but the cost was too much. Not only would it make him dizzy for a while, but it also consumes Mental Power and weakens him for a considerable amount of time which is not worth it.

Before she spoke again, she coughed a bit of blood then resumed talking

"My master is searching for a specific cane which is in your possession."

Arthur was momentarily confused before he thought of Sol'khin's cane, which he was never able to appraise or use ever since he got it.

"Why does he need it?"

"I don't know."

This time, she truly wasn't lying so Arthur didn't do anything but he was still curious about the identity of her master.

"Who is your master?"

The snake woman shut her mouth tight and refused to reply to this question. Seeing this, Arthur didn't bother asking again and grabbed her head and initiated [Dark Extraction]. He just couldn't let this matter slide and facing an enemy he doesn't know about is extremely disadvantageous and dangerous.

Just as the skill was about to take effect, a blinding white light suddenly emitted from the woman's forehead, forcing the darkness around his hand to vanish and even going after Arthur.

Fortunately, another power, which resided in his consciousness, showed up and faced this strange white light. It was none other than a miniature Curtis, who grabbed the white light and simply flung it the way it came from. Once this matter was dealt with, he swiftly went back to Arthur's consciousness.

The momentary white light which came out of the woman's forehead was able to not only negate [Dark Extraction], it even destroyed the black chains around the woman.

This gave her enough time to retrieve her precious dimensional stone and crush it. As she did that, an irresistible spatial suction started enveloping her, however, at the same time, a horrifying aura shrouded the area and made her fragile body tremble uncontrollably.

The last thing she saw before she teleported was a broken jet black blade which was slashed at her. Luckily, she escaped before it her but she soon discovered that fleeing from Arthur wasn't that easy, even with dimensional stone.

A burning black mark appeared on her right hand and an illusory black slash mark was engraved on her chest. It did no physical damage but it seriously damaged her soul and weakened her by more than 40%.

The dimensional stone would teleport someone to a random place, it could even take the user another universe. As she looked around her, the woman sighed as she sensed no danger.

The urgency of going back to her master and reporting to her master was bugging her, however, she was barely able to walk properly due to the damage done by the chains and Makaze.