Capítulo 1001: Like A Scene From Horror Movies 2.

He lifted his gaze, meeting the stares of men that once had his back, the instant the rune released him, he didn’t waste a single thought, as he spun toward the entrance and bolted for the exit, unwilling to stay even one more second inside the auction house.

Watching him run like that left the other two mages stranded in hesitation, ‘should they chase after him too?And if they ran, would whatever was coming for him lock onto them too, or worse, they get sealed in a rune of their own for a mistake?’But moving forward was even less appealing.

After what they’d just witnessed, neither of them had the courage to take another step deeper, before they could decide, the ground caved in.

As they snapped their swords up on instinct, but what burst out of the pit froze them colder than any spell ever could, the thing landed on all fours with a heavy thud.

And it wasn’t just the impact that terrified them, it was the creature itself, it had no face, no nose. Just a gaping mouth lined with jagged, needle-like fangs. Its skin looked dry and dead, stretched tight over its frame, without even a hint of fur. Sickly. Wrong. Like something that shouldn’t exist under the sun.

A Tier 6 aura rolled off it in waves.

That alone should’ve meant it was in their realm… but neither of them felt even remotely equal to it, not for a second. What stood before them wasn’t just a beast—it felt like a predator that had never known fear.

Then, just as their panic peaked, the creature turned its head toward the direction the freed mage had fled towards, a rasping sniffing sound came from that horrible mouth.

In that instant, they understood.

It wasn’t interested in them, it only wanted the one who had triggered the rune and awakened it.

“Grrrr…”

The creature growled low, then shot forward like a streak, vanishing out of the auction house and leaving the two mages behind, standing there in helpless silence.

A full minute passed, then it returned, and this time, it wasn’t alone, it dragged along the fleeing mage back with it, like a carcass.

“Aaahhhh—help me!!” the mage screamed.

But the other two mages’ bodies were stiff with terror, and could only watch as he was dragged by the leg, as the beast leapt back into the hole, hauling him down with it, then hurled him onto the other side, where it began circling him like a predator waiting for its prey to twitch or make the first move.

However the mage was too terrified to move, so the creature sprang forward, as its jaws clamped onto his neck, and the scream was cut off instantly.

Moments later after killing the mage, the faceless demonic beast dissolved into drifting particles of light, and the hole sealed itself as if it had never existed.

The two remaining mages stared at each other, unsure what to do next as fear had invaded them completely, moving backward felt dangerous after what had happened to their colleague… but going forward felt even worse.

The fear of the unknown pressed down on them like a weight, they stood there like frightened chickens, frozen in indecision, until they heard footsteps approaching from the auction house entrance.

Relief surged through them, feeling that maybe help had arrived, and maybe they could be saved from this nightmare, but when the figures stepped into view, all the color drained from their faces.

Three people stood before them.

On the right, stood Zack who was shining an evil smile towards them or that was how they just saw the smile as evil.

Beside him were the Third Elder and the Fifth Elder of the Gordons’ clan.

The moment the two mages recognized them as Elders of the Gordons clan, they understood something with crushing clarity: their ending wouldn’t be good, no matter what, the only choice left was how they wanted to die.

Zack’s smile widened at their despair as the Third elder finally begun to speak

“I’ll give you two options, first, you surrender and walk out of the auction house, or Second, you refuse… and try to go deeper inside.” he said calmly.

“Your choice, so—what’s it going to be?” the Third Elder said , arms spread wide as if he had nothing better to do than annoy the life out of the mages in front of him.

_ _ _

In truth, the demonic beast they’d encountered was a Tier 6 ghoul that was banished from its pack, one that had grown in the third level of the Beast Forest.

One of the random spell cards’ attributes was this: when used as a power source for an array formation, the card could turn into a summoning medium, for only a few minutes, it would manifest the beast linked to that card for one purpose, hunt down whoever carried the aura signature the runes had locked onto.

It sounded impossible, but each card held a trace of essence and attributes, that remnant allowed it to mirror how the beast behaved when it was alive.

And the reason the formation could pull off something this refined was simple: Alec had bought a new array blueprint from the System Store and integrated it into the clan’s defenses, he’d spent a few million system points on it, weaving it into the outer region until the entire array became more complex and far stronger.

As for the ghoul “dragging” those mages into the ground… it wasn’t the ground at all.

It was an independent space the formation created, powered by the cards, it didn’t just summon the monster tied to the card; it also generated a sealed combat pocket for anyone whose mana got marked by the rune pattern.