Hitman with a Badass System

Like gum from someone's mouth, the shadow realm spat out Michael. 

Bang!

Michael hit the wall beside Sabrina with enough force to break his shoulder bone.

"Ghost!" Sabrina was startled. One moment Ghost was with her, and the next, he came flying from the opposite side. She didn't fail to hear the sickening crunching sound from his shoulder. His entire right arm looked crooked, but soon, it started to mend itself to its normal state.

"What just happened?" Sabrina whispered frantically, looking around for the monster. But luckily, she heard no footsteps.

Michael's stomach growled as everything turned blurry. 

"Argh," Michael gritted his teeth, enduring the pain of a broken shoulder. Thanks to the APD, the healing potion had already started to mend his arm.

He grabbed the wall with his left hand and slowly picked himself from the ground. While Sabrina was looking at him bewildered, Michael took deep breaths.

"The monster. It's gone," Sabrina heaved a sigh of relief when she looked around the corner.

"Let's go," Michael didn't even take a rest but walked around the corner to continue their journey.

He had a feeling the journey was coming to an end. 

"What the hell was that?" Sabrina asked Michael. There was definitely something happened in a split second, and she wanted an explanation.

"What do you mean what just happened? I just got hit by the monster," Michael lied.

"One second, I was with you, and the next, some invisible force threw me around like a rag doll,"  Michael stretched his back while lying to her.

"We should get the hell out of here before that monster comes," Michael exclaimed. He did not need to tell Sabrina that the monster was dead when they traveled to another universe. Although the people in his world believed in other realms and other worlds, they had no idea there were other universes out there.

Even the Shadow realm was a myth to them, let alone the other universes. Michael liked to keep it that way. The last thing Michael wanted was Noah to start investigating the Shadow realm and the other universes.

Sabrina believed Ghost because his words made sense. After coming out of Everlight, Michael did not speak much. Instead, his brain replayed Don's last words to him, and Michael tried to make sense of those words.

"What did he mean by that?" Michael questioned himself.

Luckily for Michael, Hunter cleaned up most of the skinless creatures in the shadow realm. Thus, they came across no creatures. Eventually, after walking for another hour, the rune on Sabrina's hand glowed brighter than usual and let out a low-pitched whistling sound. 

"Ghost," Sabrina raised her hand to see the rune pulsing like a heart.

"I think we are close to the key," Michael said.

Instead of moving forward, Michael quickly sent his drones into the two branching ways in front of them. However, the drones refused to enter the paths as though an invisible shield prevented them from flying through.

"What should we do?" Sabrina asked.

"What else can we do?" Michael raised her hand toward the path and noticed the rune glowing brighter when he pointed her hand towards the right path.

Michael did not like walking on an unknown path. Even the system let him down, saying its level is too low to break the energy shield.

It was definitely a risk, but Michael had no choice. According to what he learned in Etheria, the key might let the queen open portals to other universes. 

Michael connected the dots and concluded that something was stopping the queen from traveling to other universes. However, the key was something that could remedy the situation in her favor.

If Michael could take the key for himself, he could stop a future threat successfully. 

"What's stopping the queen from getting the key?" Michael asked himself. She definitely had minions roaming around the place. So if the key was here, she would have tried to take the key for herself. 

But something told Michael she didn't get the key yet. According to Hunter, he forgot what happened except killing the skinless creatures in the Shadow realm.

Michael even began to question whether the key was still here or not. Yet, despite everything, he was glad he came to the shadow realm. Otherwise, he couldn't have received the Ghost Shield, a physical body for Azazel, and met new people, including his fellow earthman, Hunter Blade.

While Michael was recalling his journey from the beginning from the island to getting out of Everlight, he felt the air suddenly get chillier.

"Ghost," Sabrina also sensed the change in the air. Both of them stopped to look around the place. As far as they could see, there was nothing but dark walls around them.

Michael used his thermal vision to ensure no one was around them and saw nothing. 

"Let's keep our guards up," Michael and Sabrina cautiously took steps forward, expecting trouble any second.

The surroundings turned darker and gloomier than usual. The more they walked, the chiller the air became. At one point, Michael conjured his Alchemy flames to keep their bodies warm. But, because Michael was expecting trouble, he did not dare to fly and waste his arch energy. 

An hour later, the rune on Sabrina's light started to radiate a dim emerald green light. Again, they saw no branching ways but a dead end before them.

"There's no way," Sabrina whispered, standing close to Michael's alchemy flames.

"The key must be somewhere here," Michael once again looked around to find any clues or something out of place. 

Whoosh!

Suddenly a strong gust of wind put out Michael's alchemy flames. But although they lost the green flames, Sabrina's rune glowed bright enough to light the gloomy place.

"What was that?" Sabrina frantically looked around until she noticed a blood stain on the ground several meters ahead.

When she turned her head to inform Ghost, she noticed his gaze already locked onto the blood stain. He slowly made his way towards the blood stain.

"It's still warm," Michael squatted, touched the blood, and informed Sabrina.

"What does it mean?" Sabrina clenched her sword tight while frantically looking around.

She kept waving her hand as though her hand was a torchlight.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Michael said to himself, looking at the large blood stain on the ground.

Michael was about to stand up when the place suddenly turned red, like it was lit with several crimson red lights. 

Cring!

Michael's neck hair stood up, sensing the sudden danger, but he was too late to react. Several belts made of energy coiled around Michael and prevented him from moving his arms.

Michael squirmed against the belts only to fail. They were too strong. Even after using all his strength, he couldn't even move his arms an inch.

At that time, several figures appeared out of thin air and surrounded them.

"GHOST!" Sabrina tried to dash at Michael,

Boom!

A strong gust of wind blasted Sabrina to the wall behind her. She collapsed onto the wall and fell, coughing up blood. The sword in her hand slipped out due to the clash.

Michael squirmed against the belts while trying to summon the system.

"Damn it, system. Don't go offline now!" Michael screamed inside his mind, trying to summon the system. On the other hand, more and more cloaked figures appeared out of thin air and encircled Michael and Sabrina.

[The host doesn't have enough badass points to break the cursed chains!]

The system's words made Michael's heart skip a beat. 

Sabrina struggled to pick herself from the ground, and when she finally did, a cloaked figure grabbed her by her hair. She tried to fight, but the cloaked figure simply swatted the sword off her hand.

Every single cloaked figure radiated the energy of a Soul Refiner, and the man who grabbed Sabrina was at the Fusion Stage level. The cloaked figure dragged her by the hair without mercy and threw her against the wall beside Michael.

Michael counted eleven cloaked figures. One was at the Fusion stage, and the rest were all at the Soul Refining stage. There was no way Michael could defeat them.

"ARGHH!" Michael growled as he used every bit of strength in his body to break the strings around him. Even if he could break them, he didn't know how to escape the place.

As he growled, a cloaked figure dashed at Michael and banged his head against the wall. Michael's forehead split open as the blood gushed out. As a result, his vision blurred.

Not only the strings prevented Michael from moving his limbs, but they also stopped him from casting spells. In other words, the strings blocked the arch energy flow in his body. Thus making him powerless.

No matter how hard Michael squirmed, he simply couldn't break the strings.

On the other hand, the cloaked figure that threw Sabrina against the wall repeatedly kicked her in the gut until she began coughing more blood.

Michael was not in a better state as he got his head banged against the wall by the cloaked figure behind him. Nevertheless, the APD kept injecting him with healing potions into his bloodstream, which helped Michael from losing consciousness.

Unfortunately, Sabria had no APD. the dark cloaked figure kicked her until she stopped twitching.

"Leave…leave her alone…" Michael stuttered.

"Tricky little bugger," Michael heard the deep beastly voice coming from the dark figure at the Fusion stage level.

In a blink of an eye, the dark figure appeared before Michael and grabbed Michael's wrist. 

"ARGGHHH" Michael growled in pain as the dark figure crushed his wrist, destroying the APD.

"Beg for your life," the figure ran his finger across Michael's bloody face.

"Why…why don't you…remove these…strings…first?" Michael snarled, showing no signs of fear in his eyes.

"Bloodsucker," Michael spat blood onto the figure's face and roared like a wounded beast.

The dark figure hid his face with the dark cloak, but despite Michael's blurry vision, he saw the two long fangs sticking out of his mouth.

"We prefer the term, Nightwalkers,"

As the dark figure exclaimed, the figures slowly removed their cloaks, revealing their fangs and faces.

Michael couldn't even guess how they managed to enter the shadow realm. He did not even sense them despite all of his countermeasures. One thing was sure to Michael, he was in for a deadly ride.