Xen knew it. They were all after him, or at least they were after 'Joe', the first body he had overtaken. Considering they had chased him this far, they were unlikely to let him go that easily. Whether they wanted to kill him for revenge or drag him back to their guilds for questioning, he had no idea.
But like a cornered beast, he wouldn't go down without a fight.
All of them could have simply walked away, left him alone, and let him live. But no. They wanted to hunt him, to kill him. To enact their glorious revenge upon his poor soul.
He kinda got it. After all, he wanted to do the sa. That archer was looking especially delicious now that he knew her appraisal skill was of a higher grade than his. However, despite understanding where they were coming from, he had no plans to simply roll over and die. Not that he could roll over—the armor was really heavy, and he was technically already dead as he was in his Undead Mage form. That was all besides the point. There was a group of Hunters lurking at the edge of the floor boss's room, wanting to find this Joe person that they were convinced was him.
Wait, couldn't he use this? He was a Shapeshifter, a master of disguise. Compared to earlier today, when he was a newborn and lacking in tools, he now had a lot more skills, forms, and knowledge at his disposal. Being a Shapeshifter was still his greatest asset, and one he wasn't utilizing enough to throw off these Hunters.
If they thought he was Joe, then so be it.
I'll establish this Joe persona, as they have already figured out here. Then, in the future, I can casually walk past them while assuming a different form, and they will be none the wiser. Let's think. When Sarah first saw , I had taken over Joe's human body. They didn't ntion anything about Jonathan yet, so whether they will be looking out for an elf is unknown. Actually, do they even suspect I'm a shapeshifter? No, they shouldn't. Sarah saw as a human, as did Brandon and Aria. Only Eric could have seen as an Undead Mage, but I was wearing a cloak and kept myself hidden.
That settled it. The group of Hunters all thought he was a human called Joe.
He needed to gather more information. How? Well, he could either ask questions or devour their brains. Killing them seed impossible at the mont, so he would ask them questions. The badly damaged helt and cloak hood would do a good job of hiding any oddness from him forgetting to move his jaw, and it would also distort his voice sowhat.
"While I think it could be Joe, there's no way to confirm it besides the existence of that cloak. If only we had a priest with us," Aria cursed as she kept squinting at him. "I'd kill for their detection skills right now to confirm if it's Joe or one of his undead in that suit, since the Living Armor isn't attacking, aning it has to be one of the two."
One of my undead? Xen wondered, the gears turning in his head as he tried to process that odd statent. They believe I'm a human nad Joe, yet they ntioned sothing about an undead? Had Eric seen my undead face back then? No, he definitely hadn't, so why? All I can think of is that I used Corruption Missile, which is a skill I looted from the Undead Mage. But can't necromancers be humans too? Why would that make an undead?
Focusing more on the wording 'one of his undead' he slowly connected the dots. Did they think Joe was so kind of necromancer? From the mories he had absorbed, that was the only known class that ca to mind capable of such a feat. How they had reached that conclusion, he wasn't sure.
"There's no way the Living Armor is the necromancer, is there?" Sarah asked.
Aria shook her head. "Living Armors have never been reported to possess skills associated with necromancers. The most they can do is conjure up a small legion of spectral armors to fight at their side," she pursed her lips and stood up. "If that is Joe, where did he get that armor? It seems like artifact gear and high quality at that."
"You're right," Brandon mused. "It looks more expensive than sothing I could afford as a captain of a party for the Iron Legion. Perhaps it belonged to a C-grade Hunter? What do you think, Devon?"
"Maybe? But you can never tell nowadays. It could have belonged to so rich D-grade brat," Devon said.
"Don't you guys see the holes in it?" Jill said, pointing to Xen's leg. The two n squinted.
"It's hard to see under this lighting, and I wouldn't advise you to float that fireball any closer to that Living Armor," Eric said, frowning. "How can you see it?"
"I can't 'see' it, I can sense it. There are multiple holes in the armor, and there are still traces of corruption magic."
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Eric's face imdiately darkened. "He's wearing the armor of his slain enemies. Do you recall the bloodstains and torn clothing we saw earlier in the crypt? I bet that was a hunting party he wiped out. Wait, look, isn't that a bow strapped to his back?"
"You're right," Aria muttered in disbelief. "Did he wipe out a well-balanced team all by himself?"
Xen felt a mixture of smugness at these Hunters realizing his greatness and a festering terror at how much they could discern from the tracks he had left in his wake.
"We saw a torn-up and bloodied priest's robe," Sarah pointed out.
Aria nodded. "I didn't think much about it before, but the priest seed to have been torn apart, whereas the damage on that armor suggests magic was used. Was the priest ambushed and killed first? Or did Joe run out of mana and was forced to go in for the kill on the priest with weapons?"
"I bet he targeted the priest first based on what he did to my dear Mary," Eric hissed through clenched teeth. "Not to ntion, priests are the enemies of any dark magic users."
Xen was quietly filling in the holes and building up the persona of Joe further in his mind. He was a human necromancer who also used weapons and had a habit of targeting priests, as they were his enemies. Overall, it was pretty accurate, assuming he was a necromancer, which of course he wasn't.
But Joe could be. A necromancer, feared by all. He liked the sound of it.
"I don't know why he is simply lying there, but we need to get a team of priests down here. Actually, we should bring down a strike team to take out this Living Armor as well to stop the dungeon rush that's been brewing," Devon said. The warrior turned to Sarah. "Could you get in contact with your father to mobilize one of the Stormbringer guild's strike teams?"
The silver-haired elf nodded and pulled out a thin glass slab that lit up her face in the dungeon's darkness. "I'll make the call right now," she said, holding it up to her ear.
Xen wasn't sure how fast this strike team could respond, but this was looking bad. He couldn't lie here forever, under the protection of the Living Armor, nor could he run away while in the Undead Mage form and burdened by this heavy armor. The archer and the mage would puml his back with fire and arrows. Yet worst of all, the archer might use appraisal and discover he's an Undead Mage.
What he needed to do before anything else was shapeshift back into a human form.
"Corruption Missile," he said, creating six orbs of corruption around his wrist. Jill and Aria seed to notice what he was doing straight away.
"Back up! Run!" Aria said, scrambling backwards. "Joe is conjuring a corruption spell!"
He understood their fear. They had no idea how truly weak he was compared to them, and their party seed to have no priests. While they could easily block the attack, having three tanks, it seed that after he killed Eric's companion despite the companion's attempt to shield the attack, they weren't willing to take the risk.
The entire group quickly ducked behind the wall, giving him a mont of space.
Quickly, he ntally activated his shapeshifting skill and chose to take on the appearance of what he rembered Joe looking like, beginning the process. The hissing noise of his transformation was luckily dulled by the armor and overshadowed by Sarah frantically talking into the glass slab for reinforcents and further discussions among the Hunters.
Occasionally, Aria or one of the others would peek around the corner to check on him, but the looming Living Armor did a good job of obscuring what he was doing.
A long minute passed until a system ssage appeared in his mind.
[Shapeshift complete]
It was ga ti. Now, as the human Joe, he sat up and cleared his throat, imdiately drawing the attention of the hiding Hunters.
"I have no plans to fight," he said, dispelling the skill. It was true, fighting here was suicidal and would only expose his true lack of strength.
Perhaps sensing that he had canceled the skill, the group slowly appeared from behind the wall, with their shields raised.
Turning his head to look at them through the helt, he peeked past the Living Armor.
"Appraisal," he said, and his eyes glowed gold.
Sarah: [Elf (Duskblade: Level 4)]
Devon: [Human (Warrior: Level 30)]
Jill: [Human (Infernal Mage: Level 27)]
Eric: [Human (Paladin: Level 26)]
Brandon: [Human (Juggernaut: Level 16)]
Aria: [Human (Archer: Level 19)]
His brain ached as he scanned the group, making sure to rember each of their classes and levels. Apart from Sarah, who was pathetically weak, the rest were quite strong. Especially the two standing closest to Sarah, the warrior Devon and the infernal mage Jill. They were both comfortably in the C grade—a whole league of power above him.
As expected, Aria had the reaction speed to counter-cast appraisal on him before he could duck back behind the Living Armor.
"Human, level 4 and no listed class," Aria said, disbelief on her face. "It's the sa reading I got when I appraised the naked man that led the wolves to us, just two levels higher since then. I believe this really is Joe."
That confirmation seed to throw Sarah into a rage as she tried to run forward, only to be firmly held back by Devon.
Xen smiled behind the helt. This confird that his true identity as a Necrovore sli was safe from appraisal, though the lack of an identifiable class was currently giving him away.
"Why did you do it, Joe?!" Sarah shouted at him. "Why did you kill Jonathan?"
He didn't have to answer that question.
Yet, sothing deep within him wanted to. Even if Sarah wouldn't believe him, he felt like it was the right thing to do.
Clearing his throat, the group fell into silence to hear him out.
"I killed him because he attacked first. But don't be sad, Sarah, Jonathan didn't love you," Xen said, staring at Sarah, and he noticed her tremble. "He was using you to climb the ranks in the Stormbringers guild all along."
There it was, the absolute truth he had learned from absorbing Jonathan's mories. Now, he was deeply curious.
How would Sarah take the news?
As it turned out, that had been more of a bombshell statent than he had been expecting.
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