Chapter 684: Mountain Body
Under the night sky, above the ancient castle, as a high-ranking member of the Dark Gold Society and a Gold Stone Demon, Frederico spread his metal wings, supporting his massive body. Using the gems on his eyes and wings, he unleashed a torrent of blazing rays downwards toward the escaping thieves in the castle below. These rays were meant to form a cage that should have been the thieves’ doom, but one of the most critical rays behaved unexpectedly at the last moment.
The heat ray that was supposed to pierce through the thief instead strangely reflected off two of the thief’s hats and returned back towards Frederico himself. In an incredulous expression, Frederico was directly hit by his own heat ray, completely engulfed in dazzling light.
“Mage Hat,” this was one of Nephnis’ abilities after she transformed into Thief K with the aid of a spirit body. It originated from classic stage magic tricks involving hats, where a magician could produce various objects from a hat or transfer items between different hats. This ability allowed Thief K’s hats to connect spatially, allowing objects placed inside to move freely within the interconnected spaces.
Thief K possessed four hats, all standard top hats, which were interconnected internally. Objects entering one hat could be retrieved from another, including attacks. Any attack that could fit through the hat’s opening could be accepted by one hat and reflected back by another.
Almost all small-scale attacks except for curses or mental influences could be absorbed and reflected by these hats. Whether it was bullets, arrows, rays, or swords, any attack that could fit through the hat’s opening would be reflected. This ability was particularly effective against powerful shooting or piercing attacks. However, it was less effective against large-scale, dense attacks due to the limited number of hats available to handle multiple trajectories, especially if they were too large to fit through the hat’s opening.
After being hit by his own reflected ray, Frederico was engulfed in a burst of blinding light. But when the light faded, Frederico reappeared in mid-air, his metallic skin unscathed, only slightly reddened and quickly cooling down.
“Just now, that was… my attack? What a bizarre ability…” Frederico muttered, watching his skin cool rapidly. Then he shifted his gaze to the ravaged castle below.
“Such extraordinary abilities I’ve never heard of. So this Thief K is indeed related to the ‘Enlightenment’ inheritance? Then I can’t let you escape this time…”
Frederico continued, his eyes and wings glowing again as he aimed more rays at Thief K. Meanwhile, Thief K, who had anticipated this, drew out two additional hats from the ones already on him. Under an invisible force, the four hats floated up, their openings aligning to catch the rays penetrating the ceiling.
Frederico’s rays were numerous and fast, but Thief K dodged most of them, and the rest were absorbed and reflected by the hats. With Doro’s excellent real-time battlefield detection and precise trajectory calculations, Thief K could dodge and reflect attacks flawlessly. Thus, Thief K managed to continuously evade Frederico’s barrage of rays, swiftly approaching the edge of the castle.
On the other side, Frederico continued to bombard the thief below with rays while waiting for an opportunity to freeze her with an ice storm once she escaped the castle. However, when the thief finally burst out of the lower levels of the castle, a refracted ray struck her face, momentarily blinding her.
This refracted ray had a significant impact on Frederico because the thief had just escaped through a window into the wilderness beyond. Frederico could sense the thief’s position within the castle, but once outside, this ability became useless. He intended to use a wide-area ice storm to freeze her once she left the castle, but he lost sight of her due to the refracted ray hitting his face. Unable to determine her exact direction, he lost track of her instantly.
In this situation, Frederico could only use a wide-range ice or fire storm to strike the forest, hoping to flush out the thief. However, this approach was not guaranteed to hit her, and if she managed to escape into the night and forest, it would be problematic.
Instead of taking the risk, Frederico opted for a safer method to prevent the thief’s escape.
Flapping his wings, Frederico flew quickly to a tall tower on the castle’s upper level, where he spat out a fireball, shattering the tower’s roof. After the debris scattered, a faintly glowing magical array appeared on the rooftop, with a massive stone warhammer embedded in its center. The hammer was inscribed with countless runes and was too large for human hands to lift.
Reaching out, Frederico lifted the stone warhammer with one hand and raised it high before smashing it down onto the array on the rubble.
At the moment the hammer struck, a mysterious pattern lit up, and a strange energy wave spread outward from the array in all directions. Under the influence of this energy, the environment around the castle began to change dramatically.
Thunderous sounds echoed from all directions, and the ground trembled slightly. From the distant wilderness and forests, strange things began to rise and rapidly extend towards the sky. Upon closer inspection, they were clearly rocks.
Rocks, sturdy rocks, emerged from the ground around the castle, appearing and growing like trees. They quickly swallowed the surrounding vegetation and extended upward, blocking the moonlight. From within the castle, it looked as though a giant curtain was rising around, enveloping the entire castle in darkness.
These rising formations were not curtains but mountains—huge, solid mountains! After Frederico struck with the hammer, a massive mountain suddenly appeared and rapidly grew around the castle, soon completely enveloping it.
The castle, now inside a vast cave formed by the mountain, was cut off from the outside wind and moonlight. Looking out from the castle felt like being inside a huge cavern that could hold the entire castle, pitch-black without the moon’s light.
This sudden appearance of the mountain was not created out of nothing; it had always existed here. The castle was originally built within a giant cave in the mountain. The mountain’s disappearance was due to it being hidden by abilities.
“A mountain suddenly appears… quite impressive home-field advantage…”
In a corner of the cave, Doro, who had just flown in to avoid being swallowed by the mountain, murmured upon seeing the scene. This spectacular and strange sight was something she had never seen before.
Gargoyle’s ability to pass through rock barriers essentially made the gargoyle itself “invisible” to physical matter, making it nonexistent. If used in reverse, this ability could make rock “nonexistent” to gargoyles and others, creating a hidden state.
Frederico utilized his ability in this reverse manner, aided by rituals and extraordinary items, to conceal the entire mountain. His base was a castle within a mountain, just hidden. When someone foolishly attacked his castle, he could simply reveal the mountain, swallowing everything within hundreds of meters, burying them alive. Even if they survived, they would become prey for Frederico, who could traverse walls.
High-tier Extraordinary Beings often had home-field advantages, and Extraordinary Beings of the “Stone” type had even more exaggerated advantages. This concealed mountain was Frederico’s home-field weapon.
Since the mountain reappeared from the bottom up, the thieves hiding in the surrounding forest were instantly swallowed. Fortunately, Thief K had an escape spell and quickly teleported out of danger after being swallowed by the mountain, leaving her with only one more teleportation attempt.
However, due to the escape spell’s limited range of fifty meters, and her initial position being over a hundred meters away from the mountain’s exterior, she could only teleport back inside the mountain, into the giant cave where the castle was located. The mountain had consumed all the external trees, so the rock wall almost touched the castle’s outer wall. Upon teleporting back, Thief K appeared inside the castle, making Frederico immediately aware of her presence, exposed to his firepower.
Without hesitation, Frederico unleashed his rays and ice storms at Thief K. Forced to dodge again, Thief K had no chance of escape since the cave was completely sealed with no exit to the outside world.
“Here, you have nowhere to run, mouse!”
Frederico coldly said, sensing the fleeing target below. Holding the stone warhammer, he charged down at high speed, determined to end this pointless cat-and-mouse game with more aggressive tactics.
…
While Frederico was focused on capturing the thief, in the main hall of his castle, his subordinates were also dealing with unexpected intruders. Unlike Frederico’s advantageous position, their situation was much worse.
BOOM!
With a loud explosion, Adele, having narrowly avoided a sharp stone spear, punched Craven, sending him flying far and crashing into the wall, his back cracking.
Henri and Dock, seeing this, each shot a fireball and an air cannon at Adele, but Adele, seemingly anticipating their moves, merely glanced at them and redirected their attacks back at them. Henri and Dock took the hits, one engulfed in flames and the other blasted away.
“What the hell are you aiming at?!”
“Bullshit! You’re the one aiming wrong! Are your eyes blind?!”
After enduring countless friendly fire incidents, the trio of the Dark Gold Society couldn’t help but bicker among themselves, especially Henri and Dock, who had just fought each other, now trading insults.
Their fight with Adele had lasted for some time, during which they suffered countless friendly fire incidents. Their frustration was palpable.
Henri and Dock’s insults seemed to escalate into a physical confrontation, but Craven, who had just gotten up, intervened loudly.
“Stop fighting! Don’t let that woman’s ability affect you! This is desire control! She’s from Bourbon! Mr. Frederico said not to get angry when facing Bourbons!”
“Shut up! You’re the one who missed the most!”
Craven barely finished his plea when Henri and Dock turned and shouted at him, each punching him. Craven, enraged by the punches, retaliated immediately.
“Bloody hell… I need to teach you two a lesson about teamwork!”
With that, Craven activated his ability and attacked Henri and Dock, who immediately retaliated. The three gargoyles clashed in the hall, exchanging elemental forces. Adele watched from afar, smiling, fueling their anger and enjoying the spectacle.
Just then, a scorching ray sliced through the hall, cutting through everything and sweeping over the three battling gargoyles. Instantly, they were subjected to extreme heat, melting their rocky skin, causing them to scream in agony and collapse.
“Ah! What is this?!”
“This… is Frederico’s attack… his ray! How did it come from here?!”
“F*ck that old man! How could his eyes be so bad to aim here?!”
Lying on the ground, the three gargoyles cursed and rolled, venting their frustrations. Their anger was so intense that they forgot the hierarchy within the Dark Gold Society.
“That old Frederico! Who does he think he is?!”
“Acting so superior all the time, thinking he’s a big shot?”
“Bloody hell, the Red Tier! Bloody hell, the Gold Stone Demon! Just because he joined earlier? He’s not even a fraction as capable as me! What’s there to be arrogant about?!”
“Right! That old man is used to acting superior. Now he’s not even paying attention! We need to teach him a lesson!”
“Exactly! Take him down! k*ll him! Let’s go!”
After venting their frustrations, the three gargoyles stood up, flapping their wings angrily and flying out of the hall. Adele, watching this, smiled and took out a cigarette from her clothes, lighting it and placing it in her mouth.
“A businessperson with such a temper will lose money…”
“Indeed. Peace brings prosperity.”
Responding to Adele was Dorothy, standing on the hall’s ceiling, cloaked, observing the traces of the ray cutting through. In her hand, she held a high top hat, its opening directed at the hall.
