The Righteous Player(s)

Chapter 394: Blood Fiend

It is actually Blood Fiend. Stroking the gruesome head, Philip was in a trance for a moment.

He did not expect his new recruit to kill the notorious Blood Fiend.

These Fallens who followed Nicholas Flamel in the capital under the name of “Hermes Scholar” always made Philip vigilant and uneasy.

As a prince, Philip was not short of occult knowledge.

He knew very well that Fallen differed from the transcenders who walked the Ascension Path.

Silver Rank was an essential and indispensable stage on the path of transcendence.

For a mortal to have transcended power, he had to corrupt his soul with a curse. Only the soul that had undergone this process could spontaneously absorb the energy of the curse from the outside world.

No matter if it was strengthening the body to a new stage, soaking the soul to boost the perception, or using the curse to temper one’s will, the requirement was to have the soul absorb the curse.

Although these curses would strengthen the body and soul, the curses were mixed with many impurities.

Resentment, pain, desire, grief… Absorbing the curse with a mortal body equated to absorbing the will lingering the curse.

These were “impurities”.

They would strengthen some of the negative traits of the transcender, such as gluttony, lust, irritability, jealousy… In addition, the transcender had just acquired a new power. Therefore, they, who had not seen much of the world, usually had an arrogant disposition that would expand accordingly.

That was why the Bronze Rank Transcender was the easiest to succumb to desire.

However, after attaining Silver Rank, the moment the soul condensed into a dew from a gaseous state, these external impurities would be discharged. Still, this did not automatically turn people into saints. It only purified the negative influences that did not belong to them.

Fallen did not just suffer from these negative traits.

They even had to keep increasing their erosion rate to reinforce and manifest this negative trait.

The Fallen would extract one or more desires to transform oneself to acquire one or more aptitude-type abilities. The stronger the desire, the more new mutations would be added; each time the erosion rate was increased, the aptitude-type ability would also become more robust.

This meant that every Fallen was a paranoid and lustful lunatic.

It was just that what they cared about was different.

For example, Kafni was relatively stable.

Although Philip did not know what kind of desire her ability came from, it must be related to the ability she showed.

The ability to turn shadowed into powerful tentacles might be due to her low self-esteem for her weak and powerless body.

But in short, the threat level of “the Shadow Demon” was not too worrying.

She had not yet shown “appendages” or demonic body parts, indicating her desire was not too strong. She was still considered a normal person.

But the “Blood Fiend” was different.

Of course, Philip knew the true identity of Blood Fiend.

On the surface, his identity was the new apprentice of the famous curse material store “Howl’s Antique Store”. But in reality, he was a serial killer on the run, dubbed the “ritualist killer” by the authorities.

He often lurked in various material stores, used bookstores with occult books, and tried to see if the owner was a ritualist. If not, he would steal the money from the store and leave quietly.

However, if the shopkeeper were a ritualist, he would find a way to learn rituals from him, learn the occult knowledge there, and quickly master this knowledge.

Then, he would use the new ritual he had learned to kill his teacher.

These teachers of his were only found out after they were killed. However, since the “ritualist killer” was the culprit, the officials had no idea which rituals the ritualist killer possessed.

The investigation would soon enter a dead end.

No one knew what the “ritualist killer” was trying to do.

However, the officials were certain that he was a transcender. It should be a general profession of a [Hunter]. However, the murderer’s profession details and rank were still unconfirmed. Still, it would either be bronze or silver.

Three years ago, the ritualist killer disappeared.

Some people say that he might have been seen through and killed by an experienced ritualist, but others say that he might have been studying under an erudite old ritualist, so he did not act.

When the police station found the ritualist killer again, they were surprised to discover that he had already embarked on the Fallen path.

He was one of the Hermes scholars in the capital, a Fallen nicknamed “Blood Fiend”.

He had similar abilities to Kafni.

His aptitude ability as Fallen was that he could control his blood at will. Not only could he extract the blood out of the body and turn it into a hardened shield or dagger, but he could also speed up the blood flow to increase his strength and agility. Furthermore, the blood could be turned into needles for long-range attacks. He could even lay the blood needles as a trap against his enemies. The needles would flow along the blood vessel and attack the target’s heart or brain.

The blood of those he killed would be completely drained.

This should be the unique ability of his [Hunter] profession.

Unlike before, Blood Fiend was loyal to Nicholas or temporarily loyal.

He had never killed anyone outside of his target before. However, under Nicholas’ command, he roamed and killed many stray wizards and black wizards. Even when Nicholas asked him to kill the wizard from the towers of various countries, he did not hesitate.

He was also proficient in crossbows, poisons, daggers, melee combat, and traps. At the same time, he mastered various rituals and was fluent in the wizards’ combat styles.

This made his hunt flawless without any failed attempts.

However, Blood Fiend’s blatant hunts revealed Nicholas was secretly hunting down wizards; only Nicholas dared to accept such a person as a follower, which finally aroused the vigilance of the higher nobility in the kingdom.

After that, Philip finally found out the true identity of Nicholas.

“the inventor of Sage’s Stone, eh?” Philip narrowed his eyes slightly and muttered in a low voice.

He had no idea which side Nicholas belonged to.

However, Nicholas might have succumbed to misfortune already.

With the disappearance of Nicholas a few months ago, Blood Fiend grew more active and fanatic.

On the basis of constantly hunting down wizards, he returned to the previous hunting mode again, lurking at the “Howl’s Antique Store”.

However, this place was the capital after all.

Unlike the rural area, the Crow Family quickly found out his identity.

But none of them dared to act rashly.

When the Blood Fiend hunted, the ritual he used for disguise would no longer work. There would be conspicuous incantations visible to the naked eye on his face, and horns had grown slightly on his forehead.

This meant that his strength was quite close to Gold Rank, and he could break through his limit anytime.

When his horns were fully developed, a real, sane “demon” would hatch.

At that point, Blood Fiend’s abilities could affect people other than himself.

Originally, Philip wanted to wait and see the event’s development.

At least he would wait until his plan was completed and then mobilize secret troops or elite transcender teams to encircle and suppress the fiend.

But as Blood Fiend’s hunting frequency increased, his combat strength soared. It seemed he was about to become a Fallen completely before the king’s death.

However, Philip did not intend to send his men to kill the fiend.

He did not have the kindness to purge the fiend. It was just that he did not think his subordinates could eradicate the Blood Fiend.

Although Blood Fiend did not make a move on Silver Rank wizard, he would not even get hurt when he killed Bronze Rank transcenders. It was as simple as killing a chicken for him.

After Delicious Wind Goose heard about Blood Fiend’s ability, he suddenly claimed that the ability he possessed restrained the opponent and might be able to kill him.

Under the insistence of Delicious Wind Goose, Philip reluctantly gave him the mission.

At that time, Delicious Wind Goose was already dead in Philip’s mind.

In the end, who would have imagined Delicious Wind Goose successfully killing Blood Fiend in just three hours?

More importantly, the Goose was not even seriously injured!

How did he do it?