Hitman with a Badass System
chapter-1347

"Well, well, well," Michael murmured, examining the key in his hand. It was warm to the touch, pulsing with an energy that felt both ancient and… familiar. He glanced at the remaining heads of the serpent, each one a grotesque fusion of Skyhall's elite, their faces twisted in masks of fear and rage.

"Looks like we've stumbled onto something interesting, haven't we?"

The way they were acting, the sheer desperation in their movements, told him everything he needed to know. This wasn't just some random trinket. This key unlocked something. Something big. Something they were willing to die to protect.

Then he felt it. A subtle resonance, a faint hum of energy that echoed the power emanating from the key. It wasn't just coming from the key itself. It was coming from them. From the serpent. From each of the Ancestors fused within its monstrous form.

"Seven keys," Michael muttered, a predatory grin spreading across his face. "Seven keys to… what, exactly?"

He glanced back at the mangled remains of Thorfinn, the blood and bone splattered across the deck. The rage, the raw, all-consuming fury that had driven him moments before, began to recede, replaced by a cold, calculating curiosity.

"No more games," he said, his voice hardening. "Time to finish this."

He could have ended it quickly. A blast of dark flames or the ultimate form of the meteor spell, and the serpent, along with its precious cargo of Ancestral souls, would cease to exist.

But where was the fun in that?

No, he wanted them to suffer. He wanted them to scream, to beg for mercy, to feel every ounce of pain they'd inflicted on his mother a thousandfold. He wanted to hear those pleas die on their lips, just as Diana's cries had died on the cold, unforgiving ground of that damn forest all those years ago.

"Let's see how you like being on the receiving end of a little… dismemberment," Michael snarled.

While Michael's attention was fixed on the serpent and the tantalizing mystery of the key, Devdan, ever the schemer, was plotting.

He'd never seen a key like that before, never even heard whispers of its existence. But the frantic roars of the Ancestors, the way they'd tried to stop Michael from taking it, and Eldrin's abruptly silenced revelation… it all pointed to something big. Something really powerful.

"Seven keys," Devdan muttered, his sharp mind already piecing together the puzzle. "Seven Ancestors… Seven fucking keys to… what?"

He watched, hidden amidst the chaos of the battlefield, as Michael toyed with the serpent, his expression a mask of cold fury. He knew, with a sinking certainty, that the Ancestors wouldn't last long against the God of Darkness in this state. But Devdan wasn't about to jump into the fray. Not yet. He didn't know where these keys were supposed to be used, what they unlocked. And unlike those arrogant fools who'd merged their souls into that pathetic excuse for a hydra, he valued his own survival above all else.

"Let the Dark Lord do the dirty work," he murmured, a sly grin spreading across his face.

He knew Michael's curiosity would get the better of him. The God of Darkness, for all his power, was still young. Still prone to fits of rage and impulsive actions.

And Devdan? He was more than happy to let Michael squeeze the information out of those old fools. After all, once the God of Darkness got what he wanted… well, that was when the real fun would begin.

Quietly, subtly, Devdan began to weave a spell. Nothing flashy, nothing that would draw attention. Just a simple veil of invisibility, a whisper of celestial energy to cloak him from prying eyes. He followed that up with a quick Duplication spell, creating a near-perfect copy of himself, a decoy to draw attention while he observed from the shadows.

"I should wait for the right time," he chuckled, watching as his duplicate floated confidently towards the fray, shouting empty orders at the Skyhall angels.

Meanwhile, the six remaining heads of the serpent thrashed wildly, their serpentine bodies twisting and coiling in a desperate attempt to regain their balance. They hissed and spat, their voices a cacophony of rage and fear, but they knew, deep down, that they were outmatched.

"We have to combine our power!" Baldyr roared, his voice booming from one of the serpent's heads.

"He's too strong! We can't hold back!" another head, its features a twisted amalgamation of Lady Elara and another ancient mage, shrieked.

They'd already lost Selene, her soul consumed by the Dark Lord's fucked-up magic. They couldn't afford to lose another. Not if they wanted to survive this encounter.

A surge of celestial energy rippled through the serpent's form as the remaining Ancestors pooled their might, their individual wills merging into a single, desperate act of defiance.

As a result, the air around them crackled and hummed, the temperature plummeting as they drew upon the very fabric of the pocket dimension itself, twisting it to their will. Above them, the artificial sky, once a pale imitation of the starry expanse beyond, began to churn and roil.

A vortex of shadows and frost, a swirling maelstrom of pure chaotic energy, formed above the serpent's six heads. It pulsed and throbbed, growing larger with each passing second, its edges crackling with an eerie green light that seemed to suck the warmth from the air. Within its depths, ghostly images of long-dead creatures, their forms twisted and contorted by the magic that held them captive, flickered and danced.

"By the gods…" a Skyhall soldier whispered, his voice trembling.

"What the fuck is that?" another soldier stammered, his eyes wide with a terror that mirrored the expressions of the ghostly figures swirling within the vortex.

Even Lenora, who'd seen more than her fair share of horrors in her long, bloody life, couldn't help but whistle in appreciation.

"Damn, those old geezers still got some juice left in them," she chuckled, her crimson eyes gleaming with a predatory amusement.

But as impressive as the spell looked, Lenora knew it wouldn't be enough.

They couldn't kill the Dark Lord. Not with spells, not with brute force, not with anything short of divine intervention. And if they thought this fancy light show was going to change things… well, they were in for a rude awakening.

"They just never learn, do they?" she murmured, shaking her head as the serpent unleashed its attack.

As she was looking at the sky, the vortex of shadows and frost pulsed ominously above the serpent's heads, growing larger by the second. It was a spectacle of raw power, a testament to the combined might of the remaining Ancestors. But before they could unleash their final, desperate gamble, Michael simply chuckled.

"Seriously? You call that a spell?" he mocked, his voice dripping with disdain. "If it takes you that long to get your shit together, you're gonna die before you can even scratch me."

He raised a hand, fingers outstretched, and whispered a single word.

"Frostbite."

The air around him turned glacial, a wave of absolute zero exploding outwards with terrifying speed. The serpent, its six heads momentarily frozen in a tableau of surprise and dawning terror, tried to react, tried to twist away from the encroaching cold.

But it was too late.

A bolt of black lightning, crackling with raw power lanced out from Michael's hand, striking the serpent in its midsection. The monstrous creature roared in pain, its serpentine body convulsing as the lightning tore through its flesh, disrupting the flow of its combined magical energies. Its movements, already hampered by its size and the awkwardness of its fused form, slowed to a crawl.

And then the cold hit.

It encased the serpent in a tomb of ice, starting from its tail and creeping upwards with terrifying speed. Scales, once shimmering with a sickly green light, turned a dull, frosted gray. Eyes, burning moments before with defiance and rage, glazed over, their light extinguished by the encroaching cold.

Only the six heads, still struggling to break free from the icy grip of Frostbite, remained unfrozen, their expressions a horrifying tapestry of agony and dawning despair.

Michael, hovering effortlessly above the immobilized serpent, smiled.

"Now, where were we?" he purred, his gaze flicking from one frozen head to the next. He held up the key, letting it dangle from his fingertips. "Ah, yes… the keys," He let the silence hang for a moment, savoring the terror in their eyes.

"So, here's the deal, assholes. I want to know what this key unlocks. And I want to know now,"

He leaned closer, his gaze lingering on Baldyr's frozen visage, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous growl.

"Whoever tells me what I want to know… lives. The rest of you? Well, let's just say I'm feeling… creative."

The six heads exchanged panicked glances, their eyes wide with a terror that went beyond the physical pain of the encroaching frost.

"So, who wants to be the lucky winner?"

Michael watched the Ancestors, their frozen faces a study in conflicting emotions. Fear, obviously. But also… calculation. Desperation. And, in the depths of a few of their eyes, a flicker of something that looked suspiciously like… hope?

He smiled, a slow, predatory stretching of his lips that didn't reach his cold, calculating eyes.

He knew these types. Arrogant, self-serving bastards who'd clawed their way to power on a mountain of corpses and broken promises. They might claim loyalty to Skyhall, might spout all sorts of noble bullshit about duty and honor, but at the end of the day… they were survivors. And survivors, especially the ones who'd lived as long as these ancient pricks, tended to be more concerned with keeping their own heads attached to their shoulders than with upholding some abstract ideal.

He'd given them a choice. A simple one, really. Talk, and live. Stay silent, and well… let's just say Thorfinn's little "disassembly" was still fresh in everyone's minds. A gruesome reminder of what happened to those who pissed off the God of Darkness.

He could practically see the gears turning in their frozen minds. Weighing the options. Loyalty versus survival. Duty versus self-preservation.

"Tick-tock, assholes," Michael purred, his voice laced with amusement. "Time's a-wastin'."

He knew at least one of them would crack. Probably more. They were old, yes, but they weren't stupid. They'd seen what he was capable of. And besides, what good was loyalty if you were dead?

But there was always a chance… a slim chance that some of them, blinded by pride or stubborn loyalty, might choose to take their secrets to the grave.

And that… well, that was almost as entertaining as watching them squirm.

"Let's see who's gonna sing," Michael murmured, his gaze flitting from one frozen face to the next, "and who's gonna die."

For a few moments, silence enveloped the battlefield as the ancestors looked at each other.

"I'll tell you!"

The words burst from one of the serpent's frozen heads, the voice laced with a desperate urgency that cut through the tense silence. It was Lady Elara, her usually regal features contorted in a mask of fear and something else… cunning?

"Elara, you fool!" another head roared, its voice a distorted blend of Baldyr's fury and another ancestor's indignant gasp. "Silence! You betray Skyhall!"

But Michael was right. Lady Elara, for all her haughty demeanor and claims of unwavering loyalty, was a survivor. She hadn't spent millennia clawing her way to the upper echelons of Skyhall, hadn't endured countless power struggles and backstabbing betrayals, just to throw her life away on a losing battle.

"Betray?" Elara spat, her voice laced with a venomous scorn that seemed to crack the ice encasing her head. "Don't lecture me about betrayal, you sanctimonious hypocrites! You'd all sell your souls for another century of life, given the chance!"

She fixed her gaze on Michael, her eyes pleading.

"I'll tell you everything you want to know," she hissed. "Just… release me from this icy hell, and the key is yours."

"What does it unlock?" Michael pressed, his voice still as cold as the glacial air surrounding them, but there was a hint of amusement now, a flicker of predatory interest in his eyes. He enjoyed this. The scramble for survival, the betrayal, the way these ancient bastards were so easily turning on each other.

"The keys… all seven of them… they unlock a vault," Elara rasped, her voice trembling. "A vault that holds… something otherworldly. Something far more powerful than anything you've ever encountered."

"Get to the point, bitch," Michael growled, his patience wearing thin. He knew she was holding something back, savoring the moment, trying to milk it for all it was worth.

Elara's eyes narrowed, and for a moment, a flicker of her old arrogance returned.

"It unlocks… the blood of the Ancient God, Don,"