Feeling that one of the black specters under his control had inexplicably vanished, Maca, one of the Necromancer Association members, couldn’t help but show a look of surprise and confusion on his face. He couldn’t understand how his supposedly immortal black specter had suddenly disappeared.
Just as Maca was struggling to recall if he had overlooked any powerful individuals during his earlier encounter with Bai Yuling and the Special Affairs Bureau team, he made a startling discovery. Another one of his controlled black specters had vanished, just like the first one.
Then a second, a third, a fourth… It wasn’t until the fifth one disappeared that Maca finally snapped to attention.
“Fuck! Who the hell is destroying my black specters?” he roared in a low voice. Realizing that if he didn’t act immediately, he might lose all his specters here today, Maca immediately issued a command to his remaining black specters, ordering them to swiftly return to his side.
Upon receiving their master’s command, the black specters, which had been diligently following Maca’s orders to eliminate the Bureau members, promptly disengaged from combat. They transformed into streams of black smoke and flew back toward the stone wall.
“What’s going on? Why did the black specters suddenly stop attacking us?”
“Could it be that their controller was killed?”
“Impossible. If the controller was killed, these specters should have vanished right before our eyes, not turned into black smoke and flown back to where the controller is.”
“Then was the controller ambushed? Otherwise, they wouldn’t have recalled the specters so conspicuously.”
“Maybe, but I can’t say for sure.”
“What should we do now?”
“What should we do? Strike while the iron is hot, of course! Keep attacking these fanatical cultists!”
“But we haven’t received orders from our superiors yet.”
“Do we really need orders from above for something like this? Hurry up and move out, no more dawdling!”
While the Bureau members were bewildered by the specters’ retreat and springing into action, Pastor Zhong, who was hiding behind the stone wall and struggling to maintain it, also witnessed Maca recalling the recently deployed black specters back into his shadow.
Knowing that the Bureau members outside were still very much a threat, and remembering his agreement with Maca—paying him five million for his help in breaking through the encirclement—Pastor Zhong couldn’t help but ask Maca with a tone of anxiety and confusion, “Mr. Maca, what are you doing? Why are you recalling the black specters? The Special Affairs Bureau agents outside haven’t been dealt with yet!”
Hearing Pastor Zhong’s words, Maca, who had just lost six black specters within minutes and now only had nine left, immediately flashed an angry expression. “Shut up, you old fool! Do you have any idea how much your little request just cost me?”
“Cost you? What losses could my request have possibly caused?” Not understanding what Maca was talking about, Pastor Zhong replied, utterly confused.
Seeing this, Maca really wanted to curse him out to vent his fury. But considering the situation wasn’t right for that, he glared at Pastor Zhong and said irritably, “You’ll find out soon enough just how much you’ve cost me. But right now, the most important thing is to find the one who actually caused my losses and tear him to pieces!”
With that, Maca showed no intention of staying behind the stone wall. He leaped over it in a single bound, landing in the courtyard in front of the Flame Demon cult’s headquarters.
“Who was it that destroyed my black specters? Step forward now, and I promise I’ll make your death a quick one!” Maca stood in the courtyard, adopting a condescending posture as he shouted at the gathered Bureau members.
Hearing Maca’s voice and seeing his foreign appearance along with the dark aura swirling around him, the Bureau members immediately guessed he was a member of the notorious Necromancer Association.
“Dammit, how can this guy be so arrogant? Isn’t he afraid we’ll all just rush him and beat him down?” said a relatively new Bureau member, who hadn’t been on the job long and had limited access to information. Seeing Maca standing there in the courtyard with his arms crossed, looking completely unconcerned, the rookie couldn’t stomach the insult and muttered this to his colleague beside him.
“Don’t even think about ganging up on him. Members of the Necromancer Association are no ordinary opponents. I can tell you for sure, even if all of us here combined our strength, we wouldn’t stand a chance against him,” an older, more experienced Bureau member warned the rookie, his eyes fixed warily on Maca in the distance.
“What? This guy is that powerful? He doesn’t look it at all,” the rookie replied, surprised.
“Don’t be fooled by appearances, young man.”
“Wait, senior, did you just say that everyone here combined couldn’t be a match for this guy?” the rookie asked, turning to his senior as a thought struck him.
Hearing this, the senior Bureau member nodded. “Yes, that’s what I said. Is there a problem?”
“Of course there’s a problem, senior! When you said ‘everyone,’ that should include that mysterious girl from earlier, right? The one who split the black specter in half with one swing of her scythe. Is her strength still not enough to match this Necromancer Association member?”
Reminded by the rookie’s words about Yan Qi, who had been so active earlier, successively destroying several black specters they had believed to be unkillable, the senior Bureau member’s face showed a hint of embarrassment.
“You’re right. I spoke too hastily. I actually forgot about her, that powerful non-official combatant.”
“Senior, with that girl wielding the giant black scythe on our side, surely the combined strength of all of us should be enough to handle this guy, right?”
“Definitely. After all, that girl with the giant black scythe is seriously no joke,” the senior Bureau member affirmed with certainty.