The three guards at the checkpoint immediately moved away from their cars and headed to his location to face Ryker.
"You know what? I think you're right!" The muscular man laughed sarcastically. The wrinkles on his forehead curved downward to accentuate his murderous gaze.
"You can't wear a mask when you're dead." He announced while drawing his sword.
"Put that toy away." Ryker said coldly.
The pressure in the atmosphere abruptly multiplied exponentially, sending icy chills crawling down everyone's spines.
"W-What the fuck!?" The man stammered while falling on his butt.
CLANK! Clack, clank, clank….
His trembling hand dropped his sword reflexively, causing it to clang as it bounced against the ground.
The other three took their hands off their weapons and put their hands in the air.
"You don't know an A-class Scythe when you see one?" Ryker asked the man while walking toward him.
He sat on his haunches to look him in the eyes.
The man trembled in fear. "I-I must be having an off day."
"Hoh? Well, me too. On a normal day, I would have killed all four of you by now and paid the killing tax." Ryker laughed with a malicious grin.
All four trembled in fear, and cold sweat dripped down their backs. Ryker jacked his God's Intent stat to an A-rank.
So when he expressed killing intent, the pressure he exuded was suffocating. It wasn't real, but perception is far more powerful than reality.
"Since you're still alive, listen close. I'm staying in this city on a mid-term mission right now and don't want to expose my identity." Ryker announced.
"So if you see me walk up to this gate, you'll ignore me. If anyone asks questions, you'll tell them to fuck off. Other guards, your boss, your husband, everyone."
The quivering man nodded with teary eyes.
"Because if anyone jeopardizes my mission for administration procedures, I'll peel their face off and wear it as a mask to avoid future bullshit.
Do you understand?"
He increased the pressure as he asked his question to drive his point.
"Y-Yes." The muscular man stuttered.
"And you three?" Ryker asked while turning to them.
The guards averted their gaze while shaking their heads.
"Is it okay for me to wear a mask through this checkpoint?" Ryker asked with a mocking tone.
"Y-Yes… sir." The guard said.
Then he turned around to the humanoids previously snickering at him, causing them to shake.
"Does anyone else have a problem with it?" Ryker asked loudly.
They trembled and shook their heads.
"Good." He said while dropping the intent stat.
Ryker stood up from his haunches and walked past the line, moving down the road to the Cragov Forest.
He didn't walk out the gate out of convenience.
The teen preemptively introduced himself so that if he were forced to enter, no one would ask him to uncover his mask. Then he'd use the routes to avoid suspicion and a real investigation.
However, he got more than he planned for from the encounter.
Once out of sight, he stopped on the road and burst into maniacal laughter.
"It's so easy…." Ryker muttered in disbelief, "It's so easy to do what you want when you're powerful."
His eyes trembled, and a permanent smile carved itself on his face.
"No wonder Maxwell killed my mother!" Ryker laughed in disbelief, "It was too inconvenient… haha… for him to take the tricky route… hahaha… so he just walked out the gate!"
He doubled over and grabbed his stomach, which was twisting in knots. The laughing became painful, but he couldn't stop, so he dropped to a knee.
"He killed her… hahahaha… for convenience!" Ryker roared with tears streaming down his face.
"Well, guess what? I find it inconvenient… hahahaha… that I need to wear a mask… haha… because of Maxwell…. So I guess I'll just kill him! Hahahaha!"
Ryker got up laughing and merrily continued his stroll to Cragov Forest. It was a wonderful trip that filled his mind with wonder.
Lexicon was around the size of Earth and filled with oceans, forests, deserts, trees, and vegetation.
There were three distinct differences between the two.
First, the planet was excessively colorful. Not only was it filled with every color humans could see, but it also contained hundreds of colors they couldn't see due to a lack of lightwave perception.
The second was the lack of civilization and God's Blessing, which prevented normal people from living on the planet.
Modern equipment worked in Lexicon but was mostly useless. Everything native, living thing on the planet had blessing. So those without intent couldn't physically interact with the world.
It was a surreal phenomenon for someone without intent.
Ryker chose to walk to Cragov Forest on the light red grass because it didn't bend we he stepped on it. It made him laugh, so he jumped up and down like a toddler when he first experienced it.
He would never experience it again after killing his first monster or eating meat at a diner, so he made the most of it.
Once satisfied, he walked down the bed of needles toward the forest while whistling.
The third was that it had tens of thousands of warp gates leading to every known life-bearing planet in the cosmos on it.
Lexicon was the hub that connected the galaxy through wormholes that congregated at the genesis point of the galaxy.
Without speed restrictions set by blessing, it would only take a few minutes to reach a planet 40,000 lightyears away. Even with restrictions, a cleared path would only take a day.
Since it connected every inhabited planet and thousands of uninhabited ones, there were over ten thousand languages spoken on the planet daily.
That's why it was called [the Lexicon], giving rise to its official name.
Since it was connected to so many different planets, blessing prevented the various civilizations from nuking Lexicon to rid it of monsters and expedite commerce.
The relationship between civilizations being unable to harm the planet and its wormhole connections to civilizations didn't feel coincidental.
That's why people called the protective aura [God's Blessing] and the action aura [God's Intent] to represent the belief a higher power designed the planet.
Naturally, most didn't care how Lexicon was built. They only cared about ridding the area of the flying monsters that their monster hide ships couldn't destroy.
To do that, monster hunters called Scythes [weeded] out areas of their prey, causing them to move and clear the path.
It was Ryker's role now, and he was already making the most of it.
The entrance to Cragov Forest was a surreal sight.
From the shuttle, he saw the forest had large trees with blue leaves, bright red, brown, and yellow rocks, and streams of every color.
Avian creatures the size of cars flew through the area, and the areas outside the forest that the Scythes hadn't weeded were laden with massive lizards and beasts the size of busses.
The sights [inside] the forest were far more surreal.
Ryker saw grey tree bark and dark brown rocks, which seemed backward and amusing.
There was color everywhere, and the growing plants were strange and seemed wildly impractical by earth standards.
One matte blue plant spouted, wrapped itself around a tree three times, and then fell back to the earth, planting itself in the soil again. He couldn't tell which side sprouted!
However, Ryker didn't pay attention to the details. He walked as quietly as possible, listening for monsters, beasts, and insects.
There was plenty of the latter crawling around, but they were small, and he couldn't attack them.
His mission clearly stated that he couldn't use his knife on anything before killing a monster.
If he missed, or his attack didn't kill one, he might fail, so he didn't risk it.
Worse, if he used a stick and aggravated one, it could kill him—regardless of his size. A lone human-sized bee could kill him because he couldn't harm it. It was terrifying.
Crraaaack!
Ryker stopped when he heard a tree snap.
Crraaaaaaaack!
The second crack was far louder and caused Ryker's head to turn.
Crrraaaaaaaaaccckkk!
A mutant boar, the size of a truck, was running in his direction!
[Boar] was the closest name to describe the beast. Aside from being white and striped with dark purple brush strokes, its body and tusks were the same as an Earthian boar.
However, its face was flat, making it look like it had crashed into a wall at 100 mph and survived, giving birth to a new species.
That was believable because it represented the boar's actions perfectly!
It ran toward Ryker in a blind fury, but massive grey and green trees were in the way. So it smashed its head against everything, effortless plowing through the obstacles in his path.
Ryker reflexively turned to a green tree to snap off a branch.
His strategy was simple. He would get to a boulder, climb on it, and when the boar smashed into it, he'd stab its large red eyeball.
However, when he grabbed a tree branch, it was hard as a rock and didn't tremble!
It blew in the breeze and pulled [his] arm with it!
Panicked, Ryker immediately looked down to find sticks around.
Luckily, he found a large branch. The second he held it, he ran, searching for a spot walled in by trees and a boulder.