Unholy Player

Chapter 451: The Real Risks

So far, Adyr had only killed ordinary people in the Beyond to charge the cube, but he had never had the opportunity to kill a Practitioner and allow it to absorb their blood.

On Earth, he had also killed many first-generation mutants, and he had discovered that mutant human blood could charge the cube slightly more than ordinary natives from the Beyond.

From that, he already suspected that a Practitioner’s blood would be much more valuable to the cube and make it charge faster, but now, seeing how much it increased just by absorbing the blood of a single Rank 4 Practitioner, he was genuinely and pleasantly surprised.

The cube’s charge had already increased by nearly 20% with just one victim. With the remaining four victims, there was a very high chance he could fill the cube to 100% and then use it to turn one of his Rank 4 Sparks into a Blood variant.

Before moving on to the next victim, Adyr let his gaze rest on the body that had now fully turned into a corpse and paused to think for a moment.

Should I bring this to the researchers? They can definitely get beneficial data from this body.

This was not just any corpse. It belonged to a Blood Path Practitioner, someone who had been turned into one through experiments.

The researchers on Earth would almost certainly find valuable information in it, something that could speed up their work on turning a normal person into a Practitioner. They might even discover a way to let people choose the Blood Path as well.

The reason Adyr hesitated to let them study this corpse was simple: he was unsure about granting Humans more power than they already possessed.

He himself was very strong right now and did not feel any real threat from them, but his mother and Niva, whom he still cared about, were in their hands, under their protection, and inside their facilities.

His recent actions on Earth, killing first-generation mutants, had certainly stirred some reaction among the higher-ups and the Human Council. Adyr was quite sure they had already started looking for countermeasures, weapons, or methods they could use against him if they ever decided he was starting to get out of control.

So it was not impossible to imagine a day when Humans would turn their backs on him and stand on the opposite side as enemies.

At the same time, they were extremely useful to him. Every bit of growth they achieved and every step forward in their technology and research ultimately contributed to his own growth in various ways. That is what made the decision difficult.

After thinking for a while in that dim cave filled with red-and-black aura, he finally raised his hand. The corpse under it vanished into his Sanctuary as he decided to hand it over to the researchers for their studies.

If one day they decided to go against him and treat him as an enemy, then that would be a problem for that time. He would handle it when it came.

He also briefly considered bringing one of the ancestors alive, but he rejected the idea before the thought could even fully settle, because there were clear restrictions against that.

A Practitioner had no way to take another Practitioner into their own Sanctuary. A Practitioner was no longer just a normal living being. In theory, they were all living spaces, living planets themselves.

Unless a Sanctuary was strong and large enough, it simply could not carry another Practitioner inside its boundaries.

Another reason he dismissed the idea was that he needed them dead to fill the cube. He was quite sure he had to make it suck every last drop of blood from these remaining four Lunari ancestors.

He stepped toward the next stone bed, this time the one where Zephan’s father was lying, his body still and wrapped in that faint deadly aura, and pressed the Malice-coated dagger against his neck to repeat the same procedure.

He found the man’s skin even harder than the woman’s, the blade meeting a stubborn resistance that felt like trying to cut into thick, cured leather.

That alone made him think this one had been even stronger than the woman in his prime. Still, after carefully applying controlled force, he managed to open a cut.

Following the same safety protocols he had set for himself, he first watched for any twitch, any flare of aura, any sign of awakening. Only after confirming there was no reaction did he continue.

Step by step, he repeated the process, widened the wound, let the blood pour out, then fed it all into the cube until not a single drop remained.

[Current Charge: 44.5%]

This time, he got even more. The charge rose by exactly 22.1%, confirming his assumption that this man had been stronger than the younger woman.

"Do not blame me if I look like I am having a bit too much fun," Adyr said with a half smile as he walked toward the next stone bed, this time the grandfather.

If only there were a way to open the Sanctuaries of these Rank 4 practitioners and loot everything stored inside, this act of murder would be even more entertaining for him. But even as it was now, it still felt very satisfying.

The grandfather’s skin was nearly as strong as his son’s, exhibiting almost the same level of toughness.

When Adyr made the cube suck his blood, the charge he gained was also nearly the same, which pushed it past 66% with ease, leaving only two bodies remaining.

There was no doubt in his mind that each of the last two would provide around 20% as well, as long as they were not much weaker than the first woman, and that would be enough to completely fill the cube.

Everything was going smoothly so far, so smoothly that it made Adyr feel slightly uncomfortable somewhere in the back of his mind.

Still, he kept doing what he needed to do, having already accepted the risks the moment he chose this path.

And those risks were very real. It was just that, for now, Adyr was not yet aware of them.