Unholy Player

Chapter 450: Bountiful Harvest

[Name] Tower of Worth

[Rank] 2

Description:

At the heart of the Deep, a vast crown of stone once rose where gods idled and eternity loosened its grip. Not a hall for amusement, but a bastion built to bear the weight of time and what lies beyond.

Now it sleeps as a forgotten monument, waking once per Cycle to drink power, weigh the daring, and leave a single reward in their path.

[Next Weighing: Available]

"Another round of trials and rewards is available. Nice."

He could now attempt the trials again, with a total reward of 300 free stat points, a Rank 3 Spark, and one more Synergy Crystal.

Even though the Rank 3 Spark had a high chance of being something he would not need, he could still sell it for a good price, since Sparks earned from the Tower were always high quality and quite rare. As for the Synergy Crystal, he already had two unused ones, but they were priceless resources he would eventually need.

For now, all of these had to wait, since the 30-minute waiting period was almost over and Adyr still had one more treasure in his hand that needed an upgrade.

This time he took the blood-red cube-shaped Heart of the Blood Palace and let it absorb his Genesis energy.

[Heart of the Blood Palace responding to the energy source of Genesis.]

[Heart of the Blood Palace reconstructing...]

Up until now, Adyr had only used his Genesis energy to repair it, so he was not sure what kind of change this upgrade would bring.

He watched closely for any shift in color or texture, but when the process ended and nothing changed on the surface or in the description either, a dull feeling of disappointment settled on his chest.

"I think since it is a one-time use item, it probably has an upper limit to its power. Still useful anyway."

Now that he had finished all his preparations and the countdown in his mind hit zero, he proceeded to complete his main mission inside the cave.

Before harvesting the blood of the five Lunari ancestors, he first opened the cave door without caring about the deadly aura leaking outward.

He needed it open to keep his escape route clear in case something went wrong. There was no point in being trapped in a confined stone box with five Rank 4 monsters, even if they were half-dead.

The red-and-black aura immediately began to seep through the doorway like a living mist, then climbed the stairs in thick, rolling waves and started filling Zephan’s palace above.

Fortunately, there was nobody inside. Everyone was already gathered in the kingdom’s churches, packed under stone arches and colored glass, attending the praying sermons dedicated to their god Ignivar.

The aura would take time to fill the palace and spill outside into the streets, so the citizens were safe for now, at least as long as Adyr finished his task quickly and killed the source before it spread throughout the entire kingdom.

Let’s avoid that. I am not the type to start mindless massacres.

Adyr chuckled, then called the blood-red cube into his hand as he approached his first victim, the young woman lying motionless on the stone bed.

He pulled a small dagger from the utility belt of his uniform and placed its sharp edge against her throat, exactly where he assumed the carotid artery was, though he was not fully sure if Lunari anatomy matched Humans.

Her neck looked slender and pale, but he did not trust appearances.

He pushed the razor-sharp blade into her soft-looking skin as he tried to make a clean cut.

Although the dagger was no ordinary metal, crafted with the best materials and techniques Earth had, and sharp enough to cut even bulletproof materials if enough force was applied, it still did not slide easily into her skin. The resistance beneath the blade felt more like hardened leather than flesh.

"It is quite interesting that Ignis-path practitioners have skin this hard. Is it because of the Blood Path?" Adyr murmured, applying more force and pressing the dagger with all his strength, holding his hand steady like an experienced doctor despite the effort.

When he saw the metal tip starting to bend and still not cutting deep enough, he coated the blade with a thin layer of black Malice, the smoke-like energy coiling around the edge and sinking into the metal, amplifying its properties.

Only then did the dagger gain enough strength to pierce through the skin and finally create a small cut, a thin, dark-red line of blood running down her neck and tracing a path along her collarbone.

After seeing the blood flow, Adyr stepped back and watched her carefully, his eyes moving from her face to her chest, checking whether there was any twitch, any change in her breathing, or any sign of movement or awakening.

Luckily, the woman kept sleeping soundly, with a calm look on her face that showed she was not reacting to the pain in her throat, and nothing about her appearance made it apparent that she was only one step away from death.

Now sure that he was safe, he approached again and placed the Malice-coated blade against the cut, widening it slowly.

The skin split further under the enhanced edge until her entire throat was sliced open. Blood poured out of her body in a heavy stream, splashing across the stone bed and the ground, spreading out in a dark, glossy layer as it washed over the rock.

Once he deemed it ready, he lifted the blood-red cube and activated it so it could feed on the fresh blood.

As soon as the Heart of the Blood Palace activated, the blood still spraying due to pressure and pooling both on the ground and the stone bed began to stir. The surface rippled as if something invisible pulled at it, then it rose in thin streams and thicker flows, all drawn toward the cube.

The cube absorbed it like a starving beast, pulling every drop inside its polished stone shell. The red surface seemed to deepen in color as it drank until all the blood scattered around, as well as the last drop circulating in the woman’s veins, was completely consumed and nothing more flowed.

Once it finished, Adyr stepped back again and studied the corpse in silence.

Her already pale skin had completely lost its color, now closer to white wax than living flesh. Even her slit throat looked like two pieces of dry, torn meat, the edges no longer glistening with blood.

The red-and-black aura that had gathered around her body earlier thinned and faded, drifting away like smoke losing its source, an indication that she was truly dead, or at the very least in the final stages of dying.

With everything going smoothly, Adyr checked the treasure’s description with a calm mind to see how much charge a single ancestor had provided.

And when he saw the numbers, he froze for a moment, then a slow, very satisfied smile spread across his face.

[Name] Heart of the Blood Palace

[Rank] 2

Description:

At the core of the living quarters stands a single stone mass once named for the Corrupted King, a demon born of Hell who rose to godhood.

Satisfy its desire for blood, and in return, let it grant a single power for your path: one Spark of Rank 4 or below.

[Current Charge: 22.4%]