Super Righteous Player
Chapter 397 - 394 Blood Demon_1

Chapter 397: Chapter 394 Blood Demon_1

...This is actually a Blood Mage.

Stroking the head that eyes refused to close in death, Philip momentarily lost himself in thought.

He hadn’t actually expected this new subordinate he’d recruited to truly be able to kill the notoriously infamous Blood Mage.

Those who operated within the Royal Capital under the guise of "Hermesian Scholars," following Nicolas Flamel... always filled Philip with vigilance and unease.

As a Prince, Philip could not possibly lack mystical knowledge.

He understood very clearly that the fallen ones and those Transcendents on the path of sublimation were fundamentally different.

On the path to Transcendence, the Silver stage was a very important, indispensable phase.

For ordinary humans to possess the power of the Transcendent, their souls must be corrupted by curses. Only souls that had undergone such treatment could spontaneously absorb the power of external curses.

Whether it’s enhancing one’s body into a different realm, infiltrating the soul to deepen perception, or using curses to temper one’s will... the prerequisite was for the soul to be able to absorb the curses.

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

Hatred, pain, desires, sadness... To absorb curses with a mortal body meant also absorbing these wills floating within the curses.

——These were the "impurities."

They would inherently strengthen certain negative traits of Transcendents, such as gluttony, lust, quick temper, jealousy... Furthermore, as Transcendents had just gained immense powers and hadn’t seen much of the world, their temperament tended to inflate as well.

This is why Transcendents at the Bronze stage were most easily succumbed to their desires.

But upon reaching the Silver stage, the moment when the soul condenses from a gaseous state into dew, these external impurities would also be expelled — this does not mean one becomes a Saint, it simply purifies those negative influences that were never a part of oneself in the first place.

And the fallen ones not only have to bear these negative traits.

They even constantly increase their rate of corruption, to enhance these negative traits and allow them to manifest.

Extracting a certain kind, or multiple kinds of desires to transform themselves, permanently gaining one or several different types of abilities. And the stronger these desires become, the more mutations they would continuously acquire; with each increase in the rate of corruption, their different abilities would also grow stronger.

——This means that every fallen one is a paranoid and strong-willed maniac.

It’s just that they all care about different things.

Like Kafney, who is relatively stable.

Although Philip doesn’t know what kind of desires her ability stems from, it must be related to the powers she has manifested——

The ability to transform shadows into powerful tentacles, might have originated from her own feelings of inadequacy due to her weak and powerless body...

But in any case, the threat level of "Shadow Demons" is not very high.

She has not yet shown a tendency for demonic "appendages" or other components, indicating that her desires are not too intense, and she remains at least a normal person.

But this "Blood Mage" is different.

Philip, of course, knew the true identity of the Blood Mage——

Outwardly, he was the newly recruited apprentice at the famous cursed material shop "Harg Antique Store." In reality, he was a fugitive serial killer, dubbed by the authorities as the "Ritualist Killer."

He would often lurk in various cursed material shops, old bookstores with mystical books, testing whether the owners were Ritualists. If they were not, he would steal the money from the shop and then leave quietly.

And if they were, he would find a way to learn rituals, learn mystical knowledge from them, and quickly master this knowledge.

——Then, with the new rituals he had learned, he would kill his teacher.

These teachers were only identified as Ritualists after they were killed by him. But because they were all killed by the Ritualist Killer himself, this led to complete ignorance about which rituals he had mastered.

The investigation quickly hit a deadlock.

Nobody knew exactly what the "Ritualist Killer" wanted to do.

But it was certain that he was a Transcendent, likely with a career in the Hunter branch, his specific role unclear, his level also uncertain, but definitely either Bronze or Silver.

Three years ago, the Ritualist Killer disappeared.

Some said he might have been identified and killed by an experienced Ritualist, while others speculated he might have been learning under a knowledgeable old Ritualist, hence the delayed activity.

When the police station found the Ritualist Killer again, they were shocked to discover... he had embarked on the path of corruption.

——He is one of the Hermes scholars in the Royal Capital, code-named "Blood Demon," a fallen one.

His ability is similar to Kafney’s.

As a fallen one, his unique trait allows him to control his own blood at will. Not only can he make the blood emerge from his body to form hard shields or daggers, but he can also accelerate the flow of his blood to increase his strength and agility. Additionally, he can turn his blood into needles that can be shot into an enemy’s body from a distance or through traps, destroying the enemy’s heart or brain from within their veins.

Those he kills have their blood completely drained from their bodies.

This must be a special ability of his Hunter profession.

Unlike before, the Blood Demon is fiercely loyal to Nicholas... at least for the time being.

He had never previously killed anybody besides his target, but under Nicholas’s command, he roamed and killed many wild wizards and black wizards. Even when Nicholas commanded him to kill wizards from towers of other countries, he did not hesitate.

He is also skilled with crossbows, poisons, daggers, close combat, and traps, as well as proficient in many rituals and thoroughly familiar with the combat methods of wizards.

This made his hunts invariably successful.

...But in some ways, it was also thanks to the Blood Demon.

It was precisely because the Blood Demon’s hunts were so brazen that the fact Nicholas was secretly hunting wizards came to light; it was because Nicholas dared to accept the allegiance of such a person that the top echelons of the kingdom finally became alert to Nicholas.

Afterward, it was Philip who finally uncovered Nicholas’s true identity.

"...The inventor of the Philosopher’s Stone, huh."

Philip narrowed his eyes and murmured softly.

He had no idea which side Nicholas was on.

But now, Nicholas might have already been killed.

——Several months ago, with Nicholas’s disappearance, the Blood Demon’s actions became even more frenzied.

On top of his constant witch-hunting, he had returned to his previous hunting pattern... infiltrating the "Halg Antique Shop."

However, this is after all the Royal Capital.

Unlike the countryside— the Crows quickly discovered his identity.

But none of them dared to act recklessly.

When the Blood Demon was hunting, the ritual he used for disguise would fail. It was easy to see the visible runes on his face and the horns slightly protruding from his forehead.

This meant that his strength was nearing the Gold rank, and he could break through the last barrier at any moment.

Once his horns were fully formed, a true, rational "demon" would be hatched.

By that time, the Blood Demon’s ability would be able to affect those beyond himself.

Originally, Philip wanted to wait and see.

At least until his own plan was completed before mobilizing the covert force or an elite squad of Transcendents to encircle and suppress.

But as the Blood Demon increased the frequency of his hunts, his strength also grew at a rapidly increasing pace. It looked like he was going to completely fall before the Emperor’s death...

However, he had never intended to send his men to kill him.

It wasn’t that he harbored any goodwill.

He just didn’t believe that his few men could kill the Blood Demon at all.

Although the Blood Demon had never moved against Silver-ranked wizards... when he killed Bronze-rank Transcendents, he wouldn’t even get injured. It was as simple as killing chickens.

But after hearing about the Blood Demon’s abilities, Delicious Wind Goose suddenly claimed that his own powers restrained those of the other and that he might be able to kill him.

Under Delicious Wind Goose’s insistence, Philip reluctantly assigned the task to him.

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

But who would have thought... in just three hours, Delicious Wind Goose had successfully killed the Blood Demon.

He even did it without suffering serious injuries!

——How did he manage that?