Undercurrents?

"Die!" John swung his sword sideways and the the evil spirit got beheaded with its head rolling on the ground.

The of the evil spirit crackled loudly at John and it said: "My Lord! This servant has failed you! The mis..sion..I...was-" the head along with its body turned into before finishing its dying words.

John raised an eyebrow when he heard those and thought of something before shrugging it off. Faere scowled and said to John "I'll be leaving first".

"Hmmm" John touched his chin then bent down and picked up the spirit crystal the size of a fist.

"Nice, it's the biggest one I've seen so far!" John said in joy before putting it inside his storage and then he scoured around the guest hall, looking for valuable items that the evil goblin left behind.

Then John noticed that the scene when battle took place returned to normal and the light of the moonlight is now illuminating the hall, like the scene that happened earlier was just an illusion.

"Hmmm, I've never noticed it earlier but it seems I was sent to another place after I entered here" John said as a realization dawned upon him then after that didn't really care after all he doesn't want to think something that can't be easily explained.

John started rummaging around but unfortunately, there was nothing left of importance here.

"What a cheap bastard" John cursed then stomped as he headed downstairs and exited the mansion and left the compound.

As just turned around the street, his phone received a notification. John then gave a knowing smile before he unhurriedly opened his phone and saw the following words.

[Mission Accomplished!]

You have received the following rewards and sent to your storage.

Holy Desert Eagle

$50,000

Basic Skill Book - Windblade

"Eh?" John made a confused face then it turned into glee.

"Yahoo! The $3,000 reward became $50,000 instead. I didn't even notice earlier!" John laughed and jumped as he made his feet bumped each other.

"Hmmm...Hmmm.." John hummed happily along the way as headed towards the where he parked his bike while thinking what he's gonna with his money.

"I'll think what I'd do with the money later and rush back home to learn my Windblade Skill and try out my new weapon!" John thought happily as he made a run for it.

It was already 11:00 pm when he arrived home and got interrogated by his mother by the front door for a whole half an hour before his mother allowed him to come in.

John apologized and immediately went to washed himself before jumping on his bed and whipped out his phone and took out the skill book from the storage.

It was a worn out looking book that looks like it would crumble if a even a little bit of force is applied to it and fortunately for John it's actually sturdy despite it looks.

John happily opened the book and started reading all the instructions inside on how to perform or use the skill and made to sure to memorize all of them before closing it and threw it back to his storage chest.

"It's only a basic skill but it sounds really awesome just based on how it was described, now then. Let's try doing it" John said happily as he jumped off the bed and went to picked up his wooden sword.

"Release your mana and slowly guide it towards a weapon of your choice…." John closed his eyes as he slowly followed what the book said and as he visualized that the mana used would turn into wind element.

John failed at his first try and kept repeating over and over again until he exhausted all his mana without even the sign of success.

"Damn it, it's really hard especially the last part where I need to visualized that the mana became that of a wind element. A basic skill is already this hard, I wonder how hard would those more advanced or powerful skill will be? Haist, I feel really tired from exhausting almost all of my energy. I'll get some rest first and check out the rest of the items tomorrow and continue training afterwards." John said as his eyes slowly closed and his body feel towards his bed and not even a couple of seconds later, he is already sleeping while snoring loudly.

*****

In a desolated place surrounded by darkness that the only source of light would be occasional lightning strikes and the flickering green flames inside a lamp amidst the darkness, stood a tall castle with a gloomy surrounding surrounded by walls that towered over a 100 meters in height and outside the castle was a sea of dead trees everywhere with no signs of life.

The only way to get inside the the castle is only a single path that connects the only entrance of this massive castle and at the gate stood a dozen of things wearing full body armor that almost covered every single part of it with small pikes with two horns that stretches to the back of their heads and people who would see them would mistaken them as human knights but inside those dreadful looking armors are nothing but a single green flame flickering left and right and inside the castle are more of them patrolling around the castle and there even others covered in black robes with weapons like bows and staffs.

The armored guards are called death knights, are powerful undead just below the strongest undead, the lich. The ones with bows and what looked like a mage staff are called elite undead archers and elite undead mages.

Inside of the castle, in a place that looks like throne room is a person sitting in a large throne, the looks like the Iron Throne is Game of Thrones but this one is covered with gems and just below him stood two beings, an undead knight wielding a huge broadsword and the other one is wearing a mage robe his head doesn't have any flesh but bones surrounded by flames that looks a combination of an ice and a flame, the symbol of an undead becoming a lich.

Suddenly, the eyes of undead lich flickered in flames and turned around and knelt towards the person sitting on the throne and said: "Master, one of the three goblin scouts I sent to the world of the living just died"

"Hmm? Who killed it? Didn't it just escaped from the Demon Slayer Akuu? No matter how weak it is, they're escaping ability is already superb. I doubt anyone below Master Realm can catch it. If it's one of those old foggies in the Grandmaster Realm then that scout would certainly die so who among them that killed it?" the man asked with eyes closed and continued to just slumped on his throne like lazy person. This so called Master is a handsome man around mid thirties, is dressed in a black suit and on its head are two horns sticking upwards with a pale skin like that of a mythical vampire with clearly no blood on his body flowing, his ears like are that of an elf and a tail that look like an arrowhead on the end of it, clearly that of a devil.

"Er…" the lich hesitated at it was about to say but in the end still said it "It wasn't one of those Grandmaster Realm master, but a puny human whose cultivation is only that of the 1st Rank Novice" lich was clearly embarrassed just from the sound of 'its' tone.

The man didn't say anything and continued its silence for a few seconds before saying "Hmm..command the rest to focus on collecting information and avoid conflict with the human exorcist at all cost. I want a detailed information especially the association behind those annoying exorcist before we commence our plan" the man finished and now he looked like he was sleeping instead.

"Yes master" the lich said before going back to his previous post and started chanting with audible words that can't be understand and then the staff on its hand suddenly burst into a dark red light as it pierce towards the sky and those clouds in the sky dispersed revealing a dark sky darker than even the night sky with no stars whatsoever.