[Skill: Battery (C-Rank)]

[Type: Sacrifice]

[Cost: 0 Mana]

[Cooldown: None]

[Description: Sacrifice a percentage of your HP to regenerate an equal percentage of HP for selected targets. Can target up to 5 allies simultaneously.]

He nodded as he read the description.

He was thinking of something similar but not quite like this. He wondered if he should've just used the mutation without inverting it. Well, no point in thinking about it now.

This was the second sacrifice-type skill he'd seen.

The first one was Elara's Resurrection that resurrected someone in exchange for her own life.

Although his was much weaker, the underlying concept was the same.

Still, the skill was useful. He was looking for some support skills too - he was the all-rounder after all. To use this efficiently, he just needed to use the active version of his Regeneration skill, allowing him to regenerate 1% HP every second.

If he had more than 70% HP, he could decide to keep giving a member of his party 1% every second.

At that moment, he heard a knock on his door.

"Come in," he said, and Selene walked in. She seemed to be in a rush. Cipher got up. "Did something happen?" he asked. He wondered if someone else had come looking for trouble. Was the previous demonstration not enough?

"Yeah. It's Vex," she said.

Cipher's eyes widened once he heard the name. "He came back," she added.

"Where is he?" he asked, moving to the door.

"He's in Elaine's lab," she said as the two walked out of the door hurriedly.

"Was he hurt?" Cipher asked.

"Yeah, but he'll manage," she replied.

…

The two burst into Elaine's lab.

"Cipher, you're here," Elaine spoke.

"How is he?" he asked.

"He'll be fine," she replied, gesturing at Vex who was sleeping on the bed. "He told me to give you this," she said, handing him a folded piece of paper.

Cipher unfolded it. It's a map, he thought. He really found the place.

"Continue taking care of him," Cipher instructed. "Selene, come with me," he said.

Selene and Cipher walked through the corridor in silence as Cipher observed the map intently. After arriving at the door to his office, he finally broke the silence.

"I'll go analyze the findings in my office and strategize our next moves. I don't want to be disturbed, so make sure no one comes in here," he said.

Selene looked at him before sighing. "Take care. I won't let anyone find out," she said.

Cipher was surprised by this response. As expected of Selene - she was always quick to catch on.

"Thanks," he said and went into his office.

There was no deeper analysis to be done. He was going to attack the Immortal King by himself.

The reason he wanted to go by himself and without telling anyone was first because he had a trump card he was betting on, and second because they had still yet to figure out who the traitors were.

If people knew he had left, information might reach the Immortal King and, even worse, the ambitious guilds who might decide to attack the association while he was away. According to the map, the hideout the Immortal King was using wasn't that far off from the other hideout they'd raided, so he decided to fast travel there first.

Using fast travel was really convenient as no one would realize that he had left.

…

He appeared in the open field from before.

He observed that there were no undead corpses here - it seemed the cleanup crew had done their jobs well. He then activated fly mode and flew in a certain direction.

About an hour later, he arrived at the location. It was a village. The entire place seemed abandoned, apart from the heap of corpses gathered at the edge of the village. He descended below.

These corpses weren't that old - about one to two days. He had an angry expression. The Immortal King had slaughtered the village after arriving here.

Cipher turned around towards an unassuming hut. "You can show yourself. I know you're in there," he said.

"Kekeke, how perceptive," the Immortal King spoke as he walked out of the hut. "Looks like that snooping rat managed to make it."

He then looked at Cipher with his hollow skeleton eye sockets. "Aren't you wondering how he managed to escape from me?" the Immortal King asked.

"You let him?" Cipher said.

The Immortal King laughed loudly. "Bingo, you got it!" he said. "I let him go because I was just about to finish up refining my masterpiece."

Cipher stared at him nervously, his senses all at maximum, expecting the chairman to appear at any time, at any place. He could sense him inside the hut through ESP, but that didn't mean much to a space user.

The Immortal King raised his hand and space energy began gathering, causing Cipher to stay on guard. "I'll let you in on a little secret about me," he began. "My necromancer class allows me to absorb all the abilities of anyone I turn into undead."

Cipher remained silent.

"Tch, you're no fun at all," the Immortal King said, seeing Cipher's unsurprised expression. "Anyway, do you know why else I let that snooping rat go?" he asked.

"Why?" Cipher asked.

"To lure you here, of course," the Immortal King said.

Cipher now wore a shocked expression. "No way, you..." he stammered.

"Hehehe, that's the expression I like to see," he said. "Now that the strongest is here, the association has been left unguarded."

Cipher instantly retrieved a dagger from his inventory and threw it at the Immortal King, but the Immortal King disappeared, appearing a few meters away. "As much as I'd like to test out my new abilities on you, I have a god throne with my name on it waiting for me to claim it," he said.

With that, he disappeared.

Cipher was about to begin rushing towards the association when an undead Marcus jumped onto him from a space portal.

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