Chapter 96: Far More Dangerous!!

Ethan visibly froze.

Kill them?

His eyes widened as his throat suddenly went dry, and for several seconds, he could not even force himself to form a protest. The words had been delivered so casually, yet their meaning was terrifyingly clear. Beside him, Lara and Jake had also gone completely still, their earlier confidence disappearing as they finally understood the seriousness of the situation they had gotten themselves into.

This was no longer about being caught stealing Association products.

These people actually intended to kill them.

Ethan’s mind raced as he desperately searched for a way out.

He knew there was a way he could potentially save himself. His dungeon immediately came to mind. He could disappear inside it and hide until the danger passed, but the thought only lasted for a moment before another problem surfaced.

What about his friends?

He could hide himself inside his dungeon, and he could even store objects there for the time being, but people were different. He had never figured out a way to take someone into his dungeon against the dungeon’s own restrictions, and even if he could, he had no idea whether Lara and Jake would be able to survive inside it.

Could they even enter another person’s dungeon?

Did they have dungeons of their own?

Ethan had no answers.

And he certainly did not have enough time to find them.

"Hurry up!" the boss suddenly barked, his voice becoming increasingly urgent. "The Silent Death organization will soon be here, and you know what that means. We’ll all be dead if they find us!"

The moment the words left his mouth, the others immediately began moving.

They started discussing among themselves, apparently deciding on the best way to dispose of Ethan, Jake, and Lara before they were discovered. Ethan listened with growing dread as they eventually settled on their decision and began dragging him and his two friends out of the warehouse, their tied wrists making it impossible for them to do much more than stumble along behind them.

Ethan’s mind continued racing as they were dragged toward the front entrance.

Silent Death organization?

What the hell was that?

And why was the boss so afraid of them?

Unfortunately, before Ethan could make sense of anything, they reached the entrance.

Then two men suddenly appeared.

They were standing directly at the front entrance, both dressed in long black cloaks that concealed most of their bodies. Yet it was not their clothing that made Ethan’s entire body instinctively tense.

It was their aura.

The moment Ethan felt it, his breathing nearly stopped.

The pressure radiating from the two men was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. It was not simply the powerful presence of a high-ranked Sentinel or someone possessing overwhelming spiritual energy. There was something far more frightening about it, something that made every instinct inside Ethan scream that these two men were on an entirely different level from everyone else in the warehouse.

Ethan unconsciously stilled.

One of the men slowly raised his hand and pulled the covering away from his face, revealing his features as he spoke.

"I didn’t know we had company."

His voice was calm, almost casual, which somehow made the situation even more terrifying.

"So you rookies dared to appear in a place we had already targeted?"

Ethan’s eyes widened.

But before he could even process what the man meant, the boss who had ordered their deaths earlier suddenly dropped to his knees with a heavy thud.

"No... no, no."

His voice trembled as he lowered his head.

"We dared not. We didn’t know you guys were operating in this area. If we had known, we’d never have dared step foot here!"

The cloaked man stared down at him without any visible emotion.

"You didn’t know?"

The boss’s body trembled.

"You came in, saw that all the work and every obstacle had already been cleared, saw that those who needed to be killed had already been killed, and what did you take it as?"

The man paused.

"A blessing from the universe?"

The words sent an uncomfortable chill through Ethan.

Beside him, Lara and Jake also seemed to realize something at the exact same time.

Their ears practically twitched.

They had seen the signs.

The lack of guards.

The open gate.

The absence of security inside the facility.

All of it.

They had noticed those things and, despite finding them strange, they had eventually brushed them aside and convinced themselves that they had simply been lucky.

How foolish had they been?

Ethan’s heart sank as the pieces finally came together.

So all those things had already been done by these people?

Then who exactly were they?

They were clearly from an organization, but what kind of organization was it? Was this organization completely different from the Association? Were there actually other organizations operating within the Empire that Ethan had never heard about?

His mind immediately filled with questions.

There were so many things he wanted to ask Jake about, and strangely enough, he was almost more curious about the answers than he was concerned about their current life-or-death situation.

Almost.

Because whatever these two people were, Ethan knew one thing for certain.

They were terrifying.

A deafening sound suddenly tore through the entrance.

Before Ethan could even understand what had happened, the boss who had ordered their deaths moments earlier collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud.

His hands immediately flew toward his throat as he desperately clawed at his neck, his eyes bulging as he struggled to breathe.

Ethan’s gaze dropped toward him.

Visible black and blue veins were bulging beneath the man’s skin, spreading across his neck in horrifying patterns as his body convulsed on the ground.

Ethan stared for a moment.

Then slowly nodded to himself.

Yeah.

This time, he was sure they were dead for good.

Immediate chaos erupted.

The boss’s subordinates, who had previously been so confident while dragging Ethan and the others around, suddenly scattered in every direction. Some attempted to run deeper into the facility while others desperately searched for an escape route, their earlier composure completely gone.

But the two cloaked figures did not even move an inch.

They simply remained standing where they were.

Then one of them casually lifted a hand.

A faint movement of his fingers was all it took.

The fleeing subordinates were suddenly thrown down one after another, their bodies hitting the ground before they could even get far.

Ethan’s eyes widened.

What the fuck?

He had barely even seen them move.

The warehouse fell silent once again.

The two cloaked men slowly lowered their hands, and only then did their attention finally shift toward the three people who had been left tied up near the entrance.

Two pairs of identical grey eyes landed on Ethan, Jake, and Lara.

The twins stared at them for several seconds.

Then one of them spoke.

"Now to you three, which rookie group sent you guys?"