Chapter 26 – Evolving Corrupted

AN:

[Fragment Realm]

Elite at lv.30, Transient – lv75 and Human God – lv 120

[Mystical Realm]

Justicar – Lv. 170, Vizier – Lv. 250 and Alpha – Lv. 310

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Lucifer battled nonstop against corrupted lizard man, Flesh reapers and Blood leeches, which had bodies similar to snakes, with the bodies protruding thick shrapnel, they burrowed within walls. After a monster created a core, it would gain a certain degree of intelligence which made them all the more harder to clash against.

Brandishing his dagger, he slashed at a corrupted leech, which then shattered; another Lizard man took its spot. Unceasing battles continued throughout the dungeon, Lucifer had slept barely for the past 8 days, flashing through mobs of corrupted. Mountains of cores were stowed in his rucksack, his breath heavy, he moved onwards, deeper into the darkness of the dungeon. He was mentally fatigued, but the unceasing battles roused his latent potential, and had reached Lv.90

Now, without the usage of gravity, he could pierce their ooze covered bodies; but he had also exhausted his pill supply from the pouch. Taking mouthfuls of air, he wrestled against the fatigue that was creeping upon him, still he was excited and death was always a possibility trailing at his side. A corrupted flesh reaper, a monster with retractable six stingers attached to its backs, it lacked eyes and hunted using vibrations. Walking step by step at him from the darkness in-front, black slobber dripped from its mouth. Releasing his ice essence, he encased it in a pillar of ice, blood manipulation didn`t work on the corrupted.

Shattering the pillar of ice, he salvaged the core within the Flesh Reaper, storing it in his rucksack. He had attained mastery over mana perception and Wrath arts: Crescent waves after fighting masses of corrupted. Finding a nearby spot, he lay against the cave walls examining his dual daggers, during the constant decimations, the dagger had evolved, separating into two; using earth essence he created a shield around him, trying to gain, at least an hour of sleep. The katana, however, broke under his punishing usage.

His food supplies were entirely empty, he had to satisfy himself upon the hearts of his victims, and water was condensed from the air. Waking after two hours, he noticed scratching noises against the shield, creating spikes onto the shield he impaled the attackers.

Dispersing his shield he once again viewed the 12th staircase in front, below it, he entered the cavity. The inside was illuminated in a light blue color, as he pressed onwards; a mana oasis came into view, an oasis created from liquefied mana which takes a thousand years to form, trickles of water dripped into it from the cave ceiling. Seizing the opportunity he directed the liquid mana into his mouth. As soon, as it entered it purified his body of all the accumulated filth which poured out from his pores, drinking till he was satisfied.

Stripping of his ragged clothes, he entered the oasis; the fluid seeped into his pores, cleansing his insides all he felt was a comfortable feeling, nourishing his vitality. Verifying no corrupted were nearby, he fell asleep, gradually waking up, after a long period.

Getting out, he felt refreshed, recovering a set of clothes from the rucksack, he had previously stored within, he wore them. Lifting his pocket watch, he noticed the date; almost 4 days had passed since he fell asleep, 11 more days until the deadline. He once again wielding his dual daggers ventured deeper into the area, he came upon an old shrine. Upon an altar a ring was kept, which he claimed.

“Another storage item……..” he sighed

Lucifer judged after examining, however, it had quite a bit of things stored, which he would check later. Binding the ring with his blood, he stored the rucksack in it, lightening his load. An exit had appeared a little further off, leaving the cavity, a trail lead to another area. Just after, he left the cavity; it collapsed behind him, blocking him from returning.

The black goo dripped from the cave roof, creating large puddles onto the floor. Plants at the sides of the trail glowed in a vibrant dark glow, releasing specks of dark essence. The ooze slowly absorbed the released essence, bubbling more rapidly. From a puddle a lizard man appeared, however, his exterior appearance was different.

The Lizard man had six stingers protruding from his back, as if it combined with a Flesh Reaper. It eerily hissed.

It dashed at him, it stingers extending, it was faster than any other corrupted he encountered before. Dodging the slicing stingers, he stuck out with his dagger; unexpectedly he met with resistance before shredding through the ooze layer. Its body was clearly tougher than the former corrupted.

“The corrupted are evolving” Lucifer spoke after examining it

As he extracted the core from the corrupted, he noticed it contained a higher purity of dark essence. He tried absorbing it, and was successful, a strand of dark essence travelled into his dark essence fragment. The fragment glowed before becoming a little bigger in his mana pool.

He also reached Lv. 91; he understood that only absorbing cores with higher purity would help his progress. He exited the area, entering a chamber, his gazes landed on the weary Miz`az, to his side Milene and Silia seat. Their exhaustion was clearly seen, a very thin amount of mana emanating from them, their mana pools were completely emptied. Cuts riddled their bodies, and their gazes filled with dread.

Mana was the driving fuel behind controlling attribute essence, and without it any expert would be totally unprotected, reliant only on his physical skills. Right now, they were open to any sort of attack, without having a chance to defend themselves. They hardly noticed Lucifer moving toward them.

Silia`s bastard sword was tightly grasped in her hand, her knuckles a pale white. Milene was huddled in the corner clasping her knees and Miz`az was constantly cursing.

“Shit…….What the hell is wrongs with these dungeon monsters!”

“And….they spawns so ridiculously fast, wasn`t this supposed to be a rank 2 dungeon”

Lucifer seeing Miz`az, his blood started pulsating, he knew his change was related due to Dragon blood and right now a perfect moment was found to attain it.

Lucifer footsteps caught their attention, their expression as they saw Lucifer was that one of surprise, his body was not scratched a bit, and he looked completely relaxed.

“Did you not encounter…the corrupted?” Miz`az asked, Milene and Silia were thinking the same thing.

“I did, but I was lucky to escape” Lucifer spoke putting on his calm façade

“Miz`az….you want survive right? I have a method” Lucifer spoke invitingly

As soon as the mentioning of a method, Miz`az ears perked up, he dashed in front of Lucifer shaking him.

“Tell me what it is!” his hopeful voice resounding

“I need a bit of your blood; it will help me keep the hordes of monsters back till the deadline.

As soon as Lucifer had mentioned that Miz`az had made an incision on his arm, beckoning him to drink, as Lucifer was his only means of survival at the moment. Lucifer grabbing his hand, manipulated the blood into his mouth, as soon as it entered, the hot fiery sensation in his chest region ignited again, this time though he didn`t fall unconscious.

The higher the purity of the dragons blood the more significant the change, the blood was greedily absorbed by his body. Lucifer slits dilated, his pulsing racing, his body was finally satisfied from the amount of blood received, and the initiation began. Receiving the most pure of dragon blood, his heart thumped as if it was to burst. Just, Raw, tyrannical strength flooded his physique.

He felt his heart being restructured into that of dragon, new pathways opened throughout his body, mana specks rushed from his pool into his stream merging with his blood cells. Dragon had extremely durable bodies as a result of mana conjoining with their blood and they were the only race to do so, Lucifer was going through the same process but his was many times slower because he was not of dragon origins.

As Lucifer lay on the floor, Miz`az and the others watched him seizure, afraid to touch him, they could feel the raw might discharge in his body. Silia had an extremely worried expression on her face, as if she was going to cry. After a while the seizures stopped.

Lucifer got up, looking at his surroundings he noticed that he could perceive a broader range of colors, and the opened pathways had an effect he didn`t understand yet, but the most interesting was the raw strength in his body, he felt he could fight a God ranked opponent head on and easily devastate him.

“Did you succeed?” Miz`az asked his voice turning slightly soft

“Yes” Lucifer gave a brief reply, for him it was a great turn of events, if he had asked for Miz`az blood in any other

situation he would have meet the wrath of the council. Blood harvesting was a restricted practice and was forbidden over every continent and if committed would lead to an execution. However, as Lucifer had received Miz`az agreement he would suffer no consequences.

The loud footsteps echoed from the caves before them, a large wave of corrupted were going to reach their location soon. Miz`az turned pale, however, the pride still remained. Silia hadn`t talked at all, her complexion was waning slowly. Milene had a couple of tears around her eyes; she had given up all hope.

Preparing for the upcoming horde battle, he relaxed, waiting for the corrupted to arrive, this time however, he was going to go all out, unlike his past battles where he only relied on Physical skills most of the time. His eyes focused on the caves.

Miz`az and the others backed away, they no longer had the mana nor the energy to contend with such large quantities of corrupted. The monsters appearing from the caves were many times different; they exuded an aura of utter viciousness, their footsteps thrumming against the chamber floor similar to an army, marching to battle. The corrupted had further evolved into those of three or more monsters combined, stinger, claws, and tails, protruded from their bodies.

Their roars together formed an unprecedented blood thirst, Miz`az crumbled to the ground, his body trembling along with the others. It was terrifying, their numbers and the aura the corrupted released. The tiny bit of hope they had gathered was extinguished under their display of numbers.

To Lucifer, it felt like he was next to deaths door, adrenaline raced through him. A small smile spread over his face. Initially, his plan was to reveal as little as his abilities possible, but under this situation he just couldn`t.

Frigid essence spread from his body onto the chamber floor, coating the ground with ice, the temperature in the room dropped 20 degrees continuing to drop lower. Hundreds of blades made of fire and wind essence materialized above him, prepared for slaughter. Covering the entire chamber with a gravity radius, he increased the gravity 2000x times; mana was flowing out of him in torrents. Not even a Justicar ranked expert could simultaneously deploy triple attributes with ease.

The corrupted roared as they were pressurized by the extreme gravity. The hundreds of materialized blades came raining down on the horde, slicing through the ooze armor. More materialized blades took the place of the already unleashed, fluid and ooze spurted everywhere. Lucifer dashed into the horde like a whirlwind; entirely focused, slashing through the suppressed corrupted.

Pinned down by the gravity, the corrupted howled but were unable to get up, and then their necks were diced by a flashing dagger.

Looking from the corners, Miz`az eyes were filled with hope prior to before when he thought he had meet his end. At the same time he was bewildered and thought that using such a method was draining Lucifer's life-force. He was completely wrong; Lucifer had an ever growing mana capacity so unleashing this much amount of mana, was but emptying a minuscule part of his pool, which would fill itself again.

Silia and Milene had long before fainted under the appearance of the horde, so they didn`t observe the spectacle.

Exhaustion finally hit Miz’az body and he too fainted from a lack of sleep and an empty mana pool.

Meanwhile, Lucifer had already gone through packs of corrupted, more were arriving in waves. Their footstep reverberated through the chamber floor, a cave broke open and a gigantic corrupted came out along with another cluster of smaller corrupted around it.

As soon as they entered his gravity radius, they smashed to the ground, they gigantic corrupted was intelligent using it stingers it prevented itself from falling forward. A large amount of dark essence collected behind its back forming into a large sphere, it shot forward, the air shrieked under its speed, meters away from Lucifer, the sphere`s trajectory shifted. Lucifer targeting the sphere with 4000x times the gravity had made it plough through the chamber floor and then it dispersed.

He increased the frigid essence in the chamber, all the corrupted in the room become stone solid. The temperature in the chamber had dropped to subzero. Only he, Miz`az and the others were protected from the terrifying chill, the gigantic corrupted looked like a statue, as materialized essence blades pierced the frozen corrupted. Their bodies splintered into tiny pieces.

For the next 10 days, he had unleashed no stop attack against the hordes, he had utterly massacred them. Reaching Lv. 97, he inspected if the other were awake, however, their mana pools had not yet recovered from the overuse. Thick black goo covered the floor in front of him; he had devastated more than a thousand corrupted.

Sometimes, he used his daggers to engage with the corrupted. However, after the tenth day they had stopped spawning. Looking at his pocket watch he muttered.

“One more hour till the deadline” his voice a bit tired

Torrents of mana had flowed through him but his veins couldn`t take it, some of them had torn, but were regenerating at the moment.

At that moment, a strange spatial rip appeared at the center of the room. It was growing smaller by the second, not waiting a moment he walked toward it. He likely knew this would lead him to the creator of the corrupted.

As he steeped in, he heard the booming voice of the dean, far away in the tunnel. Stepping in, the rip completely disappeared from the chamber. Leaving only the unconscious bodies of Miz`az, Silia and Milene behind. The Dean arriving moments after Lucifer`s departure checked if their vitals were normal. Looking at the pools of black ooze, he wondered who had rescued them.

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Thank you all for reading!

:lahla: