BXBX NOVEL Chapter 286 285. God's Bounty.
In a majestic, divine-looking 200-foot-wide room.
The aura of the divine beings oozed, covering the entire room, as a few people who gave off "royal" vibes walked towards the perfectly carved and carefully placed statues of the divine beings to which they, the humans, gave a form.
The people who walked into the room were the royals: the king, the queen, the prince, the crown prince, the princess, and a priest, which one could easily identify them as just from a glance at their attire and their demeanour.
After arriving at the middle of the five statues of the divine beings, the men of royalty knelt with their right fist on their chest, as the women in royalty bowed extremely politely with the sides of their luxurious anarkali dresses raised, and the priest fully kowtowed.
Almost without any sound, gentle pillars of golden-coloured divinity befell upon the statues, and a pressure at which all of those present felt like they would be crushed was felt as an extremely gentle and light layer of golden, translucent blanket-like divinity caressed them. While the humans felt like they would be crushed to death even though the oozing divinity was extremely gentle, they all knew that it was a sign of their gods caring for them, so they didn't complain and stood like that even if they felt like dying.
[My children.] A gentle, soothing voice, whose gender they weren't able to figure out, resounded around them.
[Humans from another world are being transported to your home, even as I speak; those are people who are coming here for you, to protect you from The Fallen; they do not know the way things work in your world, but they'll adapt to it and be there for you when the Fallen rampage, so support them, raise them into strong knights and mages, and prepare for the final war.] The voice spoke and disappeared completely, as the pillars of divinity disappeared along with it.
Even though the news they heard wasn't something unexpected, they couldn't do anything but do as their gods told them to and "train" the humans who would be coming into their homes from another world, and the most annoying thing about the news was that the gods ordered them to train as knights and mages, while the Royals were planning on creating "war weapons" and "disposable tools" for the upcoming war.
Even now, they could do as they wished, defying the wishes of the gods they believed, behind their backs, as they have always done, and a few additions to their greedy needs won't be that much of a bother; well, those among them there are bound to be people, whose chances of rebelling against the royalty are higher, but with the "disposable tools" they have currently, it would be more than enough to deal with a few bugs that even dared to think about rebellion.
And as if their god heard their thoughts, another stronger pressure than the previous one fell upon them.
[The Gods and Goddesses have decided to place a bounty on the human that will very soon be in your domain; your entire kingdom shall befall the wrath of the Gods and Goddesses if you dare not hunt down the human, upon whom we have placed a bounty!] The voice and pressure disappeared just as strongly as the voice resounded in the room.
And as if a thunderbolt struck in the heads of the Royals, even though they were extremely terrified, they began to think of ways to use it against the gods even while continuing to work on their military power, which would later be used to conquer every corner of the world in which they resided.
Of course, the Gods and Goddesses knew everything about them, and it was just that they didn't really care what happened to them if they completed the orders they gave to the humans.
That wasn't all; the same words with the same voice were repeated in all the different kingdoms and empires of all the different races, together with the God Hunters Association and the organisation called "Veil."
"Veil" was an organisation that had been hunting down noble households for almost thirty to thirty five years; nobody knew how this organisation came into existence nor what they were planning to do, but all the kingdoms and empires were aware of their existence and feared it, since just from the activities they took part in, they were sure that whatever the organisation's goal was, they weren't somebody to be messed with, and definitely not when nothing is known about them.
Leaving that story for later.
Now, the target of the bounty was Eshwar, no, what else did you expect?
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[God's Bounty]
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[Target: Eshwar Frost]
[Race: Human]
[Gender: Male]
[Bounty: 1,000,000 Achievement Points]
[Dead or Alive: Dead]
===
The notification was sent to all the hunters, players, heroes, or whatever you call them, though they had absolutely no idea who he was, how he looked, what he did, why was the bounty on his head so high? Nothing was known about him, but they began to search for him; why? Because of the insane amount of achievement points they would get from hunting a rookie or a newbie, if it was that much, then they would be able to live for however long they desired without worrying about achievement points ever again.
And in the middle of nowhere, in the underground facility, ten silhouettes were seen seated in their designated seats with a suffocating aura surrounding them, but not one of them seemed to be bothered by the other's domineering aura.
And the dress of a silhouetted figure, who sat on the "main" seat, fluttered as an overpowering aura oozed out of his or her body, which made the other nine figures auras seem like nothing, but not one of them minded as their auras too began to burst out as soon as their gaze landed on the bounty, on the bounty target's name to be precise.
"Tell me, it is him." A figure sitting on the main seat spoke with a gentle yet overbearing tone as mana in the surroundings began to tremble, but the rest of the figures ignored the voice as their bodies began to tremble in excitement, enthusiasm, anticipation, and rage, as ominous grins crept up on their faces when they imagined what was going to happen from now on.
WHOOOOMMM!!!
BOOOOOMMM!
With a loud explosion, everything that surrounded the ten figures exploded into bits before turning into dust, unable to bear the insane amount of pressure that bore down upon the things that surrounded them as a tremor that grew stronger and stronger cruised through the ground they stood on.
"Finally!!! All the things, all the hard work I did for the past twenty years is, finally, bearing fruit!" A figure that stood next to the other nine figures, yelled out loudly, and the mana that his or her voice carried caused ripples to be shot out from his or her mouth, while a glitched system window floated in front of the figure that seemed to be the leader of the group.
***
Meanwhile.
In an ominous, gloomy room that blocked everything inside from the outside world, a handsome black-haired figure stood with a silver pistol in his right hand and a handgun in his left, gazing at the strong but disgustingly familiar creatures, no, monsters, in front of him.
KAT-TAK (100x)
With a sound of something sharp tapping on the ground, the seemingly hybrid monsters of Scorpios and centipedes surrounded me from all sides, leaving no way to escape. These monsters in front of me were called "Scorpio-pedes." The goddamn disgusting monsters were familiar to me because I had hunted them together with Isha when I was transported into an unknown planet, which was unfortunately fortunate to be Planet Antinoüs.
A planet that's at least 100 times bigger than the Earth and even looked like Earth that had gotten a saturation boost, but in this world, kingdoms and empires existed, and the world was annoyingly but fascinatingly more advanced than the Earth.
Beast-men, demi-humans or demon kins, lizard-men, elves, dwarves, and dragons included other mythical creatures existed in this world, with the most annoying part being the density of mana in the atmosphere and the strengths of the people living in this world, that are never to be underestimated. You never know what you'll find here, so it's better to always be careful.
Anyway, enough about that; I should focus on the predicament I'm in right now.
The exoskeleton of the Scorpio-pedes are strong, much stronger than they seem, even some Rank-C hunters would find it hard to crack the exoskeleton of these monsters, and now, as a current Rank-D hunter, I am now trying to survive against thousands of them.
KAT-TAK
'Their annoying habit of being wary of their prey is still the same; I can't believe they are waiting for me to make a move even though there are thousands of them....' I sighed inwardly.
'Tsk, I can't pour aether into the guns, meaning that I can only use the normal bullets....'
'This is why I like those martial arts novels where you have to get stronger by yourself to actually achieve greater strength or something accordingly, but being in this kind of situation, it definitely is kind of annoying. Now, I know why most of the MCs gain enlightenment or break through to the next rank while fighting against a stronger opponent.' I inwardly praised the authors of the weak to strong genre stories.
'Now, I have guns and my own strength to rely on....'
"Close combat with guns?" I mumbled, and with a few action plans, I zoomed forward, towards the closest Scorpio-pede.
BANG!