Bro, I'm not an Undead!

Chapter 1432 Gurron-Lavaan's Passing

1432 Gurron-Lavaan's Passing

"The job was pretty hard on him. He always used to say that he wouldn't have come here to monitor the Purge Banner and manage the bounty hunters if he had found a female from his race. Well, sadly – perhaps you wouldn't know – but females from his race were few and far between. To reproduce, the males had to... well, I'd rather not talk about that."

Skullius, Serenity, Sila, Weaver and Araeyn were still unsure about what to make of the being expositing to them. He – if he could be attached to a gender – was making them tea in the padoga kitchen. He claimed even Serenity would be able to enjoy it, which baffled them all, including Serenity herself. She swore she had no idea what that thing talking to them was.

"When he passed" – the thing sniffled – "I wish I had called more of his friends. It was just me and his Apostles. He said he didn't care for anyone else attending his funeral. I always thought that was a lie... but maybe that's how he really felt."

Skullius had something to say about this, but when he saw the thing, a large sheet of paper cut into a flimsy humanoid shape, handing him a grey mug filled to the brim with a hot vapour-like substance, he wore a polite smile, accepted the mug and swallowed his question.

Everyone else followed suit. Only Weaver looked unperturbed by the sight of the creature. He even gave a "thank you" to the creature.

Only when everyone held a mug and was snug in their seats did the paper cut out sit on his own chair, stare at them and wipe a tear from his face. It looked drawn on, as did his eyes, mouth and every contour that attempted to express the details on him. It was dull, flimsy work. @@@@

Serenity finally tore herself from the questions of how in the world a creature like this could be a decent evolutionary path. She gave a sip of the vapour in her mug and to her surprise, she could taste it. It swept through her humanoid flame body, spreading to the tips of all her appendages. It gave her a tingly feeling that she had never felt before.

He recalled the Adamantine Beetles. He had been offered an evolutionary option like that when he reached the Fourth Tier. They were magnificent creatures that could replicate indefinitely and could come up with counters for any attack that reached them. They were a nice choice, but their Flaw was rather terrifying.

An Adamantine Beetle could spill out a series of miniature beings with an appearance and powers similar to theirs. These extras would go off on their own after birth and grow stronger, but inevitably – eventually – they would hunt down the original to kill them. It didn't help that they could change appearance, making it hard to see them coming.

(A/N: Refer to Ch.1101.)

Skullius had hard-passed on the option. He wouldn't have liked to live a paranoid life where he saw everyone as a potential enemy.

Unnio Lak continued. He sounded somberer than before.

"Bounty hunters can register with us first before going on a hunt for any of the creatures on the Banner, or they can come with evidence of the kill afterwards and grab their reward. Null Life Essence signatures from the kills suffice. We'd seen cases of both means millions of times by then, so perhaps that day, we were just too complacent," he said.

"The bounty hunter was not bounty hunter at all. It was a creature on the Banner disguised as a valiant warrior, come to knock a few of us guardians off the Null Life subscription. We were no strangers to some of these abominations coming to erase their names from the Banner, but in the last three million years, none of them had ever tried to fight us directly. The bastard was powerful. Really powerful. It took nine of us to kill him and we lost three during the fight. We soon found out later that it was an alliance of these fiends on the Banner. This fake bounty hunter was supposed to kill a few of us and then after a few million years, others would strike once we had forgotten the incident. They wanted to destroy our organisation and then take over management of the Banner. That would be a disaster, especially if they managed it without anyone knowing. We guardians are hermits who stay locked up in our padogas half the time, after all."

"Gurron-Lavaan was injured during the battle. Well, he was poisoned. The enemy had been an Espoxes Apothecator, a vile practitioner and brewer of Null Life poisons ranked twenty-sixth on the Banner. It was unfortunate, but...not even Gurron-Lavaan could have survived having his Null Life Core poisoned."