'So she could even synthesize poison inside her own body and spit it out?'
Noah looked at the venom floating in midair before him, controlling it as naturally as if it were his own hand or foot.
Wondering whether she could break down her own poison and use that to achieve poison immunity, Noah reversed the venom's direction, forced all of it back into Kashuk's mouth, and pinched her jaw shut.
"Mmph—mmph!"
After being forced to swallow the toxin she had produced herself, Kashuk only coughed a few times.
Noah observed her condition through Appraisal and murmured to himself, "Just like a venomous snake. If the toxin enters the stomach, it still gets broken down."
As he spoke, he used Weaver to manipulate her bodily systems, robbing her of control over her own body.
The tomb guard who had transformed into a chameleon had nearly lost his mind from fear the moment he saw Kashuk lose a leg.
Relying on his ability to crawl along walls, he scrambled away in a panic.
Although the fight here had already been decided, he had disappeared without a trace.
Poney might have been an idiot, but even she had reacted by now.
Looking at the somewhat familiar mask in front of her, she exclaimed in surprise, "Ah! You're Mr. Lamure?"
Noah turned to look at Poney and gave a slight nod.
He briefly explained that he was one of the reinforcements sent by the Empire and told Poney not to worry.
In truth, there was no need for him to add that last part.
The overwhelming combat power he had just displayed was already shocking enough for the girl.
"You're amazing, Mr. Lamure. I got careless and ended up struggling against that opponent, but you handled her so easily!"
"It was nothing. She just happened to be a bad match for me. Can I leave this person to you? I hope you can keep watch over her instead of killing her."
Faced with Noah's request, Poney initially wanted to agree, but then she remembered that she still had a mission to complete and said.
"I can do that, sure, but I still want to go support the others…"
"Leave the support to me. I'll work hard enough for your share too, all right?"
"Huh?" Poney scratched her head and asked, a little embarrassed, "Is that really okay?"
Noah nodded twice and said no more.
He immediately set off in pursuit of the direction the chameleon had fled.
After he left, Poney kept her promise, took out a rope, and tied up Kashuk, the female tomb guard who had already lost the ability to fight.
Noah searched the inside of the royal tomb for traces of the chameleon.
However, after recovering some of his stamina, the man seemed to have immediately used mimicry to hide himself.
"I lost him."
Noah was not annoyed that he could not find the chameleon.
After all, there were still plenty of other samples available here.
He simply did not know whether the other samples would have as much energy as that chameleon.
"Roooar!"
A chilling beast roar came from the end of the passage.
There was no time to wonder what it was.
Two monsters seemed to have caught his scent and suddenly appeared.
Noah studied them for a moment and found that they were two monsters as large as adult African elephants.
Their posture resembled gorillas, with two legs and two arms.
Their fists were clenched and used to support their bodies. Their lower limbs were comparatively short, but enough to hold them upright.
Their thick fur looked as if it could withstand extreme cold.
The strange part was their heads.
They had no flesh or skin on their skulls at all; each head was nothing but exposed bone, and the active brain tissue beneath could be seen directly.
'A little disgusting.'
Noah watched as the two monsters roared and pounced at him together. Without hesitation, he threw out dozens of wind blades.
The wind blades passed through the monsters' bodies, slicing the two enormous creatures into pieces of roughly equal size.
A huge amount of blood gushed out, forming a small pool of blood across the floor.
"Monsters raised by the tomb guards? Failed products of secret arts, I suppose."
All bark and no bite.
They were probably about the level of a First-Class Danger Beast.
Small fry like this, even if a hundred of them came at him, would be easy to deal with.
After appraising the corpses, Noah discovered that one of the two monsters had originally been an ordinary animal, though it was now impossible to tell what animal it had once been.
Its main body seemed to be a bear or a gorilla, because tissues from those two animals each accounted for about twenty percent of the monster's body.
In addition, ten percent came from a leopard, ten percent from a water buffalo, and there were many other kinds of animal tissues, each making up less than ten percent.
It was basically a stitched-together creature.
The other monster was different. It had actually been a low-level Danger Beast.
It, too, had been altered beyond recognition.
Because of the secret arts, their body tissues had reacted against one another, producing the mutations that resulted in their current forms.
Killing them cleanly could be considered a mercy.
The man who had been secretly observing Noah's movements, and who had brought the monsters over, swallowed hard.
He was also a tomb guard.
After realizing that the intruder was no ordinary enemy, he had brought out two terrifying monsters, hoping they would kill him.
But he had not expected those two monsters to be killed before they could even last a single exchange!
This guy was bad news.
'I should go find someone else…'
The man turned around, only for a sinister mask to fill his vision!
"…"
Before he could make any move, Noah had already placed one hand on him and disrupted the bioelectric currents inside his body.
The man's eyes instantly lost focus.
He dropped to his knees, then collapsed to the ground.
Since Noah had said he would help with the support, there was no reason to let this one go.
The beastification secret art was interesting, but after seeing it several times, the novelty began to fade.
Better to quickly settle matters here, then take the samples back.
The fighting on the upper levels grew increasingly intense.
...
Meanwhile, on the lower level, the members of the Enhancement Unit besides Kurome began waking up one after another.
Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do about the iron chains binding them.
That was when a figure suddenly burst through the wall.
It was Guy.
Using the power of his Shingu, Masquerade: Thousand Layered Robes, to pass through the floors and reach the lower level to rescue their allies was Gozuki's instruction.
"You're… from the Special Unit?" Gin asked excitedly when she saw Guy suddenly appear.
As for why she asked that, the reason was simple.
This was the enemy's main base.
Most people would not go around smashing holes in their own home.
She had only judged the situation through that bit of common sense.
"Yo, nice to meet you!" Guy raised a hand in greeting, then thumped his fist against his chest and introduced himself.
"I'm with the Empire too. I'm here to rescue you!"
Once she heard that he really was an ally, Remus immediately burst into tears.
"Uuu, thank you."
Gin was also glad to be rescued, but seeing Remus act so pathetic immediately irritated her.
"Hey, enough already."
"Uuu…"
Guy drew a blade from behind his waist. It was something he had found inside the royal tomb.
He struck the chains with one slash and freed Gin.
When he started freeing Kurome, the sight of that face so similar to Akame's immediately made him realize that this had to be Akame's younger sister.
"You're Kurome, right? Relax, your sister Akame came too! She's fighting the enemies upstairs right now."
"Big Sister came?"
The girl lit up with joy.
Guy continued swinging the blade and cut through Kurome and Remus's chains as well.
The moment she was freed, Remus immediately clung to Guy's leg.
"We're saved! Thank you!"
Her fussing did not make Guy happy in the slightest, because this girl was absolutely not his type.
He liked curvy beauties like Cornelia.
This girl looked like she was not very bright.
He would never date a woman even dumber than himself.
"Hey, let go already. And keep your voice down. This is the enemy's main base, remember? We're not safe yet."
Guy frowned as he looked at the three girls' ugly complexions.
"Your condition doesn't look right. Were you poisoned?"
Gin was also covered in cold sweat from the withdrawal symptoms.
She explained, "No. This is because we haven't taken our medicine on time."
"Medicine?" Gin's lips curved slightly.
She took out a pill from her hair and placed it directly into her mouth.
Kurome and Remus also pulled pills from who knew where and swallowed them.
Guy stared at them in shock.
Even he had no idea where they had hidden those pills.
They hid them well enough that even after being captured, the pills had not been found.
Kurome swallowed the pill and immediately calmed down.
She said coldly, "We're fine now. Our combat strength has recovered. We won't drag you down."
Guy looked at her and frowned faintly.
He was not actually stupid.
He just preferred solving problems with muscle.
So he could tell that the medicine was highly addictive, and almost certainly harmful to the body.
Akame's little sister was taking something like this?
Did Akame know?
"Hey, what's wrong? Why are you spacing out all of a sudden?" Seeing Guy suddenly stop moving, Gin began searching the area more carefully, thinking an enemy might have made a sound.
Guy came back to himself and shook off his distracting thoughts.
He pointed at the hole he had opened on the way here and said, "Let's escape through there."
Guy had thought it would be easy to take three hostages and escape through the shortcut he had opened.
But after he started moving with the three of them, he felt as if something was watching them.
It was extremely unsettling.
He had no choice but to focus completely on sensing every breath and movement around them.
Remus suddenly said, "I keep feeling like someone is staring at us from behind…"
Gin, seeing her act so timid at a crucial moment, immediately scolded her, "Coward! Stop saying creepy things and show some courage!"
"No!"
"No."
Kurome and Guy spoke at the same time.
The two exchanged a glance, nodded, and said, "Someone really is watching us from the shadows. Be careful, and keep an eye on our backs."
"Hehehe."
A faint laugh drifted over from somewhere that seemed both near and far.
The sound startled them all into shouting, "Who's there?!"
After demanding an answer, the four gathered back-to-back, covering one another's blind spots.
But at that moment, the voice sounded again.
And this time… it was incredibly close.
Rather, it was right beside their ears!
"No need to be so tense, intruders."
!!!
Nani?
Guy, Kurome, Gin, and Remus were all stunned.
The "backs" they had leaned against were not each other's backs at all.
Standing among them as if he had appeared out of thin air was a man.
Kurome reacted the fastest.
Without saying a word, she swiped her nails toward the man's eyes. Her gaze was cold, her attack decisive and ruthless.
Guy and Gin reacted a beat slower, but they attacked the man at the same time.
He had shown himself voluntarily and even spoken to reveal his position, leaving himself surrounded.
Was this guy an idiot?
Faced with their encirclement, the man remained completely calm.
He even looked at Kurome with appreciation.
He grabbed Kurome's wrist, then smoothly turned and used her as a shield in front of himself.
Guy and Gin's expressions changed, and they hurriedly stopped their attacks.
Kurome gritted her teeth and struggled with all her strength, but it was useless.
Only then did the man speak again.
"Calm yourselves."
A faint, almost teasing smile hung on his face, as if he was not worried in the slightest about facing four opponents alone.
After all, he had chosen to reveal himself.
That alone made people instinctively overestimate his strength.
Yes, it was confidence.
Although the man had appeared for only a few seconds, that overwhelming confidence had already been branded into everyone's mind.
The faint pressure he gave off, combined with Kurome being taken hostage, made the others choose to observe for the moment.
The scene instantly fell silent.
Exactly as the man wanted.
He held a staff in one hand and restrained Kurome with the other, beginning his self-introduction as if he were giving a sermon.
"Listen carefully. My name is Venegu. I am the Elder of the tomb guards, and also the strongest among them."
Elder.
Guy, who had intelligence on the tomb guards, knew that this title belonged only to the No. 1 among them.
In other words, the man before them was the tomb guards' leader.
The final boss.
As for his appearance, there was nothing especially remarkable about it. Aside from being tall, he looked to be around forty or fifty.
At least to the muscle-brained Guy, he looked like nothing more than a somewhat thin middle-aged man.
Even face-to-face, Guy did not feel much from him.
After introducing himself, Venegu raised his hand and pointed toward Remus, who had reacted the slowest.
"Aside from that woman, all of you are quite good. Especially you, black-haired girl. Rejoice. From this day forward, you will be my woman!"
The moment those words left his mouth, everyone present froze.
Huh?
"What kind of weird shit are you saying the moment you show up, you creepy old pervert?!" Gin, being the most blunt, directly voiced the thought that had surfaced in her mind.
Guy felt the same. This old man was seriously messed up.
But for some reason, he also felt a strange sense of kinship with him.
Maybe that was just what it meant to be a man.
But that was not the important issue right now!
Venegu's mouth twisted upward. "If it is a strong woman like you, you will surely give birth to strong descendants for me, powerful heirs who can continue guarding the tomb of King Putra."
As he kept talking to himself, Kurome did not hesitate at all and shouted, "I refuse!"
"Ngh!"
Before Kurome could finish speaking, pain shot through her wrist.
Venegu had tightened his grip.
He repeated, "I told you, calm yourself."
"There is still plenty of time, thoughts can be changed. And some things have nothing to do with your opinion in the first place. Besides, you are nothing more than despicable intruders."
"I am actually quite happy."
"Just as we were troubled over the issue of producing descendants, excellent mothers like you came right to our door."
"This is fate! The will of the gods! You cannot even think of defying it, much less succeed."
Guy's fists clenched hard as he listened to that string of nonsense.
Now he was sure.
He and this guy were definitely not the same kind of person.
That brief sense of kinship had been nothing more than an illusion!
"Cut the bullshit, creepy old man! Your delusions—"
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