Hitman with a Badass System

Rickston auctioned several interesting items for humongous prices after the pill. But Saber had no interest in any of them. Nothing seemed to have any connection to the Dark Lord at all. He may not have a clear idea about the item, but he wasn't stupid either. He knew better than to think a spell scroll or a rune mastery book had any significance to the Dark Lord. The auction continued for another hour until Rickston announced a short break before continuing. Many hated the hustle of leaving the hall and coming back. Hence, they stayed still. But the nobles and the VIPs went outside to take some fresh air. Meanwhile, Saber looked at his surroundings and noticed a few guardians among them. Saber doubted the Soul Refining stage guards and a few Fusion stage guardians could stop the Dark Lord if he decided to attack.

Fortunately, Saber concealed his cultivation stage with the help of Elidyr's rune. Otherwise, his Fusion Stage cultivation might have raised a few eyebrows. Being a Fusion stage cultivator in the VIP rooms was one thing but sitting among the commoners was not normal. The Guardians would have immediately alerted the Supreme Guardian if they had seen Saber. Soon, seconds turned into minutes, and minutes turned into hours. Saber waited patiently for Rickston to return. He hoped Rickston would bring new items to auction. As Saber expected, several guards accompanied Rickston to the stage. They carried another set of items covered with red cloth.

Once again, the bell rang, following the sound of firecrackers. The crowd gradually shut their mouth. Rickston waited for the crowd to turn completely silent. A while later, Rickson cleared his throat.

"Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen. Let us begin the second part of the auction without delay," said Rickston. He looked over his shoulder as a soldier flicked his wrist. A bright light shot out of the soldier's finger. The very next moment, something covered in silver cloth appeared before Rickston. Saber slightly leaned forward. Unlike the other items, this one was covered in thick silver cloth. Besides, the soldiers around the item looked a bit confused and flustered. Saber saw a glimmer of doubt and uneasiness in Rickston's eyes.  Just like Saber, everyone in the auction hall had their eyes glued to the black cloth-covered thing. Saber faintly heard a faint crackling noise coming from the thing. Rickston let the people speculate for some time. Eventually, Rickston placed his hand on the cloth.

As the host slowly lifted the silver cloth up, the hidden object underneath was finally revealed to the eagerly anticipating crowd. Undeath the cloth was a piece of armor. To be more precise, a grayish arm armor. It could cover one's entire right arm from shoulder to wrist. The armor looked ancient. Tiny crimson-red lightning bolts crackled around the armor piece. Saber was stunned. This armor piece, without a doubt, belonged to the Dark Lord because he had seen another piece of the complete set. Although the armor piece brought to the Dark ocean by Adelia was in much better condition than this one, it certainly belonged to that set. For a moment, Saber's mind went completely blank. According to the Dark Lord, each piece was severely guarded and hidden from the rest of the world. But the Aqua Palace somehow managed to get their hands on the armor piece.

The armor looked like it had been buried in the ground for decades. Saber could barely see the runes and designs engraved in the armor. Surprisingly, the armor piece radiated no energy. Except for the red lightning bolts coiling around the armor, it looked no better than worn-out armor. People looked confused and interested at the same time.

"What the fuck am I looking at? Is that an armor piece?" Saber heard Gaya's shocked voice.

"How did they get it?" Gaya was stunned. She took a closer look at the armor through the Spyder on Saber's neck. Judging by its look, the armor piece looked similar to the other. The engraving of a skull on the shoulder plate looked exactly like the Dark Lord's symbol. So unless this was an elaborate scheme to trap the Dark Lord once again, Gaya knew that the armor piece must be genuine.

The armor piece sat in a glass box under everyone's curious gazes. Looking at the armor, many began to murmur among themselves..

"What kind of armor is that?"

"It looks rather worn out,"

"Where is the rest of the armor set? "

"Let's hear what Rickston has to say about the armor piece. It looks special to me,"

"Yeah, look at the lightning bolts around it. Red lightning. It's definitely something special,"

"If I had to bet, I wouldn't go past million gold coins,"

...

After the armor was revealed, the originally quiet auction house instantly buzzed to life. Everyone's gazes fell on the armor in the glass box. The sounds of intense discussion and gasps of amazement overlapped ceaselessly. Among the people present, quite a few had lived for dozens of years yet had never seen such an armor piece.

"Ladies and gentlemen!"

Rickston silenced the murmuring with his words. His thunderous voice swept across the hall as the discussions about the armor gradually died down. Rickston smiled, looking at the hundreds of thousands of people attending the auction, and loudly declared,

"Our team of adventurers recently unearthed this armor in Gimgulir after the battle between two Fusion stage cultivators," said Rickston. Everyone in the hall knew about this big battle that happened a few months ago in a dwarven kingdom. Apparently, a dwarven royal guard and a rogue dwarven cultivator went all in to kill each other. Since the dwarves were usually battle-hungry fiends, no one was surprised at their battle. However, their battle reduced several villages to ruin. Apparently, their battle happened to happen above a dungeon built to guard the armor piece. Because of time and the effects of the battle, the armor piece was unearthed by the adventurers.

The battle lasted a week until the rogue dwarf managed to escape Gimgulir. Noah tried to stop the battle, but the dwarves gave no face to the Guardian Guild. They even rejected the empress's request to send dwarven forces to stop the battle before more dwarves became homeless or dead. If Michael had known their battle would expose his armor piece, he would have taken out the two dwarves and retrieved the armor himself.

"According to our scholars, this armor piece was forged using  an unknown ore which had gone either extinct or came to this world from higher realms,"

People gasped in shock. Rickston's words piqued their interest in the armor piece. As an experienced auctioneer, Rickston knew how to raise an item's value with just words.

"This armor piece is engraved with several runes, which we believe might lead to the other armor pieces. In its full form, our scholars believe this armor could withstand a Half Immortal's attack," Rickston paused for a moment.

"Although we do not recommend it, one can melt down the armor to forge an unstoppable weapon out of this strange ore,"

"I am going to fucking kill that son of a bitch," Gaya roared after hearing Rickston's words. Just the thought of someone melting the armor piece made Gaya's blood boil.

"As you can see, this armor creates these bolts of red lightning. I was assured that we could have unearthed the armor's secrets if we had more time. But the Aqua Palace has decided it's better on your hands than on ours," said Rickston. He omitted that their scholars completely failed to learn anything about the armor piece. They knew better than anyone this armor was useless without the rest of the pieces. In fact, the Aqua Palace didn't even battle-test the armor. They feared any attacks on the armor piece would wreck it completely. Thus making the armor piece a scrap. In other words, the Dark Lord made sure even if someone had managed to get the piece of armor somehow, they wouldn't be able to use it at all.

The Aqua Palace had a rule not to wear any armors they unearthed from unknown ruins. They came up with this rule when someone in the Aqua Palace wore armor cursed by a powerful elven witch. The Aqua Palace almost went extinct at that time. Ever since then, they had a strict rule not to wear or use anything unknown to them.

This rule saved them once again as the Dark Lord armor piece was engraved with deadly runes. They would have turned to dust if someone else had worn the armor. The armor piece may look old and worn out, but it was still capable of killing people.

"Whoever wins the bid for the armor will get one hour with a 5-star runemaster and blacksmith from the Aqua Palace. You can learn more about this armor from the best of the bests," said Rickston. Some of the VIPs became really excited by the armor. They were the collectors who invested in ancient items such as this armor.

"Idiots didn't even consider the armor might belong to the Dark Lord," Gaya snickered. But she couldn't blame them either. The past Dark Lord left these armor pieces before resetting the timeline. No one, even Michael, had no idea how long the past Dark Lord lived from his time. What happened to the past Dark Lord was the biggest mystery Michael had come across in his life. Fortunately, Adelia was one step closer to figuring out the previous Dark Lord's life.

"Let us start the bid for the armor piece. The starting price is three million gold coins. Each bid should increase by two million,"

"Six million," someone from the VIP room bid for the armor.

"Don't let the armor piece out of your sight, Saber. When he wakes up, I want to present this to him. So don't disappoint me," Gaya said in a stern voice.

"You won't," said Saber.

"Eight million,"

"Ten million,"

The VIPs and the nobles continued to raise the bid. Rickston was really surprised by their bids. But he didn't know that one of the bidders was the War God of Gondolin. At that moment, both a War God and a Vampire were hoping to get their hands on the armor. Only time could tell who would emerge as the victor between them.