Magic Shop System

When the shadow was about ten meters away from Kadyn, he saw clearly who it was. It was a man, two meters tall, with broad shoulders and bushy brows. His face, expressionless. Aside from all these normal traits, there was something eerie about him, his eyes were white, with no pupils in them, sending a chill through Kadyn's heart. 

Then his gaze fell on his right hand in which the man held a gigantic hammer, dragging on the grassy ground, producing a sound he heard previously with footsteps.

"Hey, who are you?" Kadyn asked when the man stopped a few meters from him, but he didn't get a reply. The man tilted his head and grinned. What a chilling smile that was, Kadyn felt a cold sweat trickling behind his back. 

Then, before he could collect his jumbled and confused thoughts, the man moved and swung the gigantic hammer in his hand towards Kadyn. 

"Fuck!" he cursed, and sprang back, avoiding the hammer by an inch. "Who are you? Why are you attacking me?"

"Kekekeke."

The man cackled in reply and attacked again. It seems he had no intention to talk. Only intention to kill.

"Is he mad or something?" Kadyn asked himself. After all, the man indeed appeared to be a goner. He didn't know, and he never met him, yet he still attacked him for no reason.

Just then the hammer again whooshed in his direction. Kadyn almost screamed in misery as the distance had shortened between him and the attacker, it had become a lot harder to avoid. 

He twisted his left ankle and bent backwards, and again survived. But just as he sighed in relief, his leg slipped on the damp grass, and he lost control of his body, falling on his butt, a fearful look emerged on his face.

The man looked at his expression and showed a wicked grin, eager to turn him into a bloody pulp. Kadyn crawled back on his hands in a crab style as the hammer smashed between his legs, almost wrecking his groin and destroying his glorious future.

"Stop, you motherfucker!" he cursed and cast a 10-star fire spell. Molten Bomb!

"Boom!"

The lava bubbled from underneath the man and burst into horrible flames, producing a mushroom that enveloped the mad man inside itself. "He must be dead after taking such a powerful attack, won't he?" Kadyn said nervously.

When the attack vanished, and the dust settled, Kadyn looked with wide eyes in front of him, and his mouth fell agape. "What the fuck is he?" he shouted. The man was standing with the same grin on his face, without a single scratch on his body. 

Kadyn roared and again fired a 10-star spell, this time it was wind, but it did no better than the last one. Only now did he realise that the man in front of him was completely out of his league. He was too strong for someone like him.

When he was thinking what he should do, the man once more moved.

"Where the hell did Cecelia go?" he felt like crying when he thought about her. Did she dump him and run away? After all, her loyalty was zero. 

But then, he shook his head. Abandoning him was equal to betraying him, and the system won't tolerate it, he would have gotten a notification if something like that had happened. Not betrayal, then what? He couldn't guess.

"No matter what, I have to fight it, if I want to live," he glared at the man and shouted furiously. "Come, you fucking bastard!" and dashed towards the man who also grinned evilly at him, and lunged with his hammer.

"Puchi!"

Abruptly a weird sound came, and the grin of the man with a hammer froze. A confused expression appeared on Kadyn's face, but he didn't stop and cast another spell. "Stop!" However, before he could send the attack towards the man, someone spoke. He halted. 

"Is that you, Cecelia?" he asked, but then the head of the man in front of him burst like a melon, revealing Cecelia behind him. 

"What the—" he was left speechless. He had done everything, but he couldn't even leave a single scratch on the man's body, but Cecelia turned him into a cold, headless corpse with just a single move. The difference between strengths could be painful sometimes. 

"What is that?" when he was completely speechless by the show of her strength, his gaze fell on her hand. Something was writhing and convulsing. Worm? "What is that thing?" he asked with a shocked expression.

Cecelia looked at her hand and looked at the struggling worm in between her thumb and index finger, then she turned towards Kadyn. "This worm controlled that guy just now."

"Wha—"

Kadyn didn't know what to say when he processed her words inside his brain.

Cecelia eyed the worm and then pinched it into a goo, turning it a slimy liquid, then shook her hand before wiping them with a handkerchief and went on. "There were others like that man. Actually, five more." She pointed at the headless corpse on the ground. 

She didn't seem to see the shock on Kadyn's face and continued. "I went after them when I felt their presence, but I didn't know, another was hiding away from the group."

Kadyn opened his mouth a few times but didn't know what to say as he had many questions jumbled into his head. Then he took a deep breath and asked. "What is that thing?"

"Soul Devouring Worm," Cecelia replied. "They were Rank 1 worms. Without a host they are nothing but when they possess an elementary mage, their physical strength would let them fight with Rank 1 mage, and if they possess Rank 1 mage, only a few Rank 1 mages would be able to defeat it."

She looked at his shocked expression and said. "The most shocking thing about these worms is that they live in a colony with their queen. They only go out to collect soul power for their queen."

"But how could there be such a creature in the city and no one knows about it?"

"There is indeed something fishy about this matter," Cecelia said. Then shook her head. "But it doesn't matter to us. Let's go, the city guards must have sensed something wrong in this area."

So the duo vanished, but Kadyn didn't realise that the man who was covered in blood had turned into a husk.. The blood on the ground had also vanished.