After Jin left Kiyu to her misery (just for a little while), he reached another room where it was bursting with... darkness. But thanks to his cultivation powers, he was able to use Maqi aura to find his footing rather easily. Yet, he knew that there were only a few who thrived in darkness.
That was what he thought until he heard a very familiar voice.
"Jin~ My little boy Jin~~"
"You know, I am assuming that this room would be dominated by the Night Foxes, considering they follow your modus operandi." Jin sighs but in his heart, there was a little tug of happiness growing in it. "And also since the System said that you would not be able to enter here even by your own volition."
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Mmhmm. You are not wrong." A slight fade of light shimmered for a moment, allowing Jin to see who he was exactly talking to and there he noticed that it was a dark elf's silhouette. A Night Fox who was covered head to toe with a towering cape and hidden mask. Still, he too knew that Kraft did not have such a petite physique despite the cape cloaking his bodily figure.
"Jin. Jin. You know that if I want to do something, I can always get what I want. It's just a matter of when and where." The Night Fox replied and Jin believed that his fellow Devil Fox was doing it via the Night Fox as a medium, or intermediary.
"Also, what's up with the darkness? Is this like a long overdue stress test?"
"Well... I thought the System was missing out on certain things, so I purposely made sure to add a bit of nostalgic factors into its design. Don't you like it?"
"I cannot exactly say that I missed it. However, I do feel that this is something I have not experienced for a long time. Feeling the entire darkness around me ...as much as I hate to spell it out, I do feel safe in here." Jin remarked slowly as if choosing his words to make sure not to make Kraft elated. Undeniably, his feelings betrayed him, and Kraft could sense it.
"Such a liar. But thank you for telling the half truths. So in return, I shall give mine. We all miss you." Jin could sense Kraft's little genuine grin from his words alone even though it was through a medium via a Dark Elf subordinate. But before he could relish the thought, Kraft interrupted to spoil the experience.
"But Qiu Yue felt otherwise." He reported.
"As I quote her words. Do not come back empty handed. Either get stronger or wads of cash. Preferably loads and loads of cash. Also, do not bring any more minions back! I had enough of you bringing strays back just because they are mildly useful or interesting to you!" Kraft intimated Qiu Yue's voice and a little of her body language while relaying the message to Jin.
"I guess… I already let her down since I am not achieving any of those." Jin shrugged his shoulders as he suddenly saw strokes of lights emerging at the far end of the room. To the Mechanoids who were coming into the room, they thought they could override their shortcomings with a mere night vision or even a bright torchlight attached to their rifles.
However, as they ventured deeper into the room, they noticed as if the darkness was eating up their lights. At first, they thought that their batteries were drained but it was impossible for the entire group to be experiencing the same fault. They concluded that there was something in this room which was interfering with their electrical sources and assumed that there might be some magnetic disruptor.
Yet, it did not make sense that their functions were all working except for sight. Their power supply was still plenty but when it comes to vision related modules, they were not functioning to a minimal standard. Night vision, thermal vision and even infrared were all not working. It was as if this particular darkness was encroaching and even as they retreated back to where they came from, the problem persisted.
Yet, the fearless Mechanoids stood guard redirecting all their energy to the rest of the sensors with the exception of the human commander who was scared shitless at this unusual phenomenon. Suddenly, they heard a rifle shot that echoed throughout the entire room and yet there was no muzzle flash at all.
In an instant, the human commander could notice that its tactical system was informing him that four of his Mechanoids were down. It was then one of the Mechanoids reported that there were four simultaneous shots that caused their comrades to fall. The only problem was that the shots' trajectory did not make sense as it all came from one particular direction. There was no angle deviation and that confused the Mechanoids further since it was unable to prepare for a retaliatory attack.
What was more scary was that each time a rifle shot was heard again, even more Mechanoids fell and the human commander could only ask them to provide suppressive fire to no avail. Slowly but surely, each and every Mechanoid had dropped into the silent darkness and eventually, the human commander took his own life, unable to cope with this complete abyss.
"That was rather anticlimactic…" Jin said and the possessed Dark Elf nodded his head.
"I told them to take a break by coming here since they had been working hard ever since your disappearance and these lazy sons of -*cough* these very competent employees of mine still decided to give their best for the System." Kraft clapped loudly and the rest of the Night Foxes did not bother answering knowing he was being sarcastic.
"In any case, you do not have to worry about any Mechanoids leaking in this area. We can talk to our heart's desire. How have ya been?" Kraft asked even though Jin believed that he already knew.
Still, he gave the shortest summary ever before asking Kraft about his current endeavours, especially the wellbeing of his overworked Night Foxes.