The burly man saw a flash of black before his eyes, and before he could react, he felt a sharp pain in his throat. Then he saw a pair of icy eyes radiating endless coldness, staring at him without a trace of emotion.

With a heavy “thud,” James Carter pulled the hardwood sword out of the man’s throat, wiped the blood and brain matter from the blade onto the corpse, and cursed in disgust, “Courting death.”

If he had confronted the man head-on, James Carter would likely have ended up with both sides badly injured. But with a sneak attack—especially against an opponent of equal strength—the burly man’s earlier carelessness was nothing short of asking for death.

Just now, hiding in the shadows, James Carter had launched his attack at lightning speed. The sword pierced the throat, angled upward, passing unimpeded straight into the brain, then ruthlessly stirred.

Such an injury, even a legendary dragon would die instantly.

Not wasting any more time on the corpse, he saw, under the all-penetrating light of the Justice Rune Stone, another skinny accomplice. James Carter decided to deal with him as well.

He felt no pity for the burly man. Someone who would kill at the slightest disagreement deserved no mercy. And since the skinny one was his companion, he couldn’t be any better.

Holding the hardwood sword, James Carter moved with uncanny agility through the familiar graveyard, looking like a ghost.

Soon, James Carter spotted the skinny man digging furiously. This guy was really efficient—he had already opened up the tomb and even dug out a few burial items.

James Carter recognized the tomb’s owner. The poor fellow had been a mage’s apprentice in life, with mediocre talent, and died seven years ago in an alchemy accident. Rumor had it that this apprentice had another identity: the illegitimate son of the city lord!

No one knew whether the accident was truly accidental or not, but after the apprentice’s death, the furious lord of Wildfire City killed many people, thoroughly purging Wildfire Town.

To appease the lord’s anger, Mage Hoover of the Mage Tower made a concession and exceptionally accepted the lord’s only daughter as a disciple.

For a commoner’s cemetery, the tomb owner’s status was quite high, and his grave was the most ornate—only to fall victim to these damned grave robbers.

The skinny man was highly alert. Not hearing the expected screams from the night watchman’s hut, he instinctively became wary.

He straightened up and quickly caught some strange noises in the howling wind, making him shiver uncontrollably as his heart pounded wildly.

He knew something had gone wrong. The boss hadn’t made a sound by now—he must have met with disaster. And if someone could silently kill his much stronger boss, there was no way he’d survive tonight.

He might have been fearless when digging up other people’s graves, but that was only because he was facing the dead, who couldn’t resist. Now, with his own life threatened, he was utterly terrified.

The fact that he could still stand and not collapse was already remarkable.

Footsteps sounded behind him. The skinny man trembled involuntarily, gripping his shovel tightly as he slowly turned around.

A young man approached, holding a sword stained with dark, congealed blood. No doubt—the boss had been killed by him.

“Don’t come any closer, don’t come any closer.” As James Carter advanced step by step, the skinny man retreated, muttering meaningless words.

With a “smack,” he tripped and fell backward, flailing his arms desperately, trying to grab onto something.

James Carter struck instantly, unleashing his stored energy. His body flashed like a black streak, and the hardwood sword stabbed fiercely into the skinny man’s chest, snapping two of his ribs with focused force.

If he hadn’t wanted to keep the skinny man alive for now, that sword would have slipped between the ribs and pierced his heart.

The skinny man’s chest throbbed with pain, and combined with his terror, he lost all strength. The shovel fell from his hand, and he toppled straight into the tomb he had just dug open.

Even as he fell, he shouted, “I’m dead, ah, I’m dead!”

“Speak. Why did you come to rob graves in the cemetery? Aren’t you afraid of being burned at the stake, your soul forever destroyed?” James Carter pointed the hardwood sword at the skinny man’s throat and asked coldly.

With Pastor Paul’s strange reaction, the mage’s robe, and the black aura above the cemetery, James Carter could easily deduce that grave goods in this world were easily identifiable. Could these two possibly have some way to erase the black aura from these items?

The skinny man was overjoyed to find himself still alive and immediately shouted, “Don’t kill me, I’ll talk, I’ll talk! The orcs in the Thunder Mountains have started gathering, and Wildfire City can barely protect itself. We just wanted to get some money to run away, please don’t kill me… wuwuwu~” By the end, he was actually crying, even grabbing the dead man’s clothes beside him to wipe his face.

After wiping, he caught a whiff of the stench of decay, which made his eyes roll back in disgust. He hurriedly used his own sleeve to wipe his face hard, but that pulled at the wound on his chest, making him cry out in pain.