Chapter 380: Murder

By the time he was already halfway to reaching the place where people were, Aurus had finally realized that he had been subconsciously heading in the direction of the area, instantly stopping in his tracks as he wondered what was going on with his body.

"How is my body doing this?" Aurus could not help but ask himself, wondering if his awakened primal instincts had something to do with this problem. After a while, he could only conclude that this problem was indeed because of those instincts awakening, seeing that he had not experienced or done anything else other than that during this time.

Now realizing that he was slowly but surely making his way to the place where people were, Aurus consciously controlled where his body moved as he teleported, double checking to make sure that he was heading back in the direction of the Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance. But unfortunately, even though that was the case, it still seemed like his body wanted him to do something else, with each teleport inching him closer and closer to the place where people were.

At this point, Aurus was far enough to more or less see that the place where people were was, in actuality, a town that was bustling even while the sun was starting to set. With this in mind, he tried once more to teleport in the direction of the Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance, not wanting to see any of the people that lived in the town in fear of his primal instincts.

But once more, his body dictated otherwise, teleporting him closer and closer to the town until eventually, he was only a couple of kilometers away from the town's gates, allowing him to hear the hustle and bustle of this town that seemed to have no time for silence.

Whoosh!

Seeing as he had gotten closer to the town that moving farther away from it, Aurus could not help but let out a sigh, wondering yet again as to what was going on with his body after he had awakened his primal instinct of bloodlust. With that in mind, he could not help but think over the reason why he had awakened this yet again.

As he pondered over it even more, he noticed that he had awakened such a human instinct as an Inanimate, which he thought made full sense back then since he knew for a fact that he was human in soul. But then, taking into consideration that he was in an Inanimate body, he now had no idea if the awakening of instincts were brought about by the body of the being or the soul of the being.

Eventually, he decided to not think about it any further since he would obtain no answer to it after mulling over it even for a long time. In any case, he had bloodlust, and he had to make sure that this bloodlust would not harm others in any way…if he could control it in the first place anyway.

For some reason, with the passage of time, he lost more and more control over this instinct of his, to the point that whenever he went on a killing spree to increase his comprehension over the Epiphany of the Tempest, it would seem like his body had become autonomous, killing anything and everything that was in his line of sight. While that happened, his mind would seem blank, though at the same time, he was in a state of great euphoria.

Knowing very well that he might lose himself in the feeling of euphoria from killing, Aurus now wanted to limit himself from killing any more beings than the ones he had killed so far. Currently, he was rationalizing the fact that he had more or less wiped out the ecosystem of two areas to increase his comprehension of his Epiphany because they were beasts that could kill conscious beings in the future.

In any case, he could not focus on his thoughts for long as the clamor from the town nearby snapped him out of his train of thought, making him look at the town's gates in silence as he knew very well that if he entered the town at this moment, he would not be acting in the best interest of his rational and logical side.

But even though that was the case, each and every Anima making up his body seemed to be screaming out at him, telling him to enter the town as it would increase the combat power of his body to greater heights at speeds he had never imagined of reaching before.

In the end, Aurus decided that it wouldn't be harmful if he just entered the town to take a look inside and see what was the clamor all about, making sure that he wouldn't make a move on the citizens that were in the town. Unfortunately, he did not notice at this moment that even his rationality was now being clouded by the bloodlust, acting for the benefit of himself instead of others.

Nevertheless, he still entered the town with a couple of teleports, fully believing that he had control over the awakened instincts of his body. But then, at the very instant he had seen the people moving around throughout the town, it seemed that his body had entered a manic state for a second before quickly returning to normal, with him being none the wiser.

With that happening, he continued to teleport throughout the town, watching the people do their things as he could feel that he was losing his control over the bloodlust he was feeling. Though, while that was happening, he could not help but ask himself, "Are these people still doing work even though it's already turning to nighttime?"

Curious as to what was going on, he continued to teleport, taking note of the fact that the most citizens of the town he entered were converging towards three spots while a fraction were scattered throughout the town, increasing the brightness and liveliness of the town in the meantime.

"I guess they're improving the quality of their living," Aurus muttered as he continued to watch, feeling like his instincts would take control of his body at any moment. Fortunately, he was still able to suppress this feeling as he could not help but say, "The leader of this town must be a good leader, seeing how they want to improve the livelihood of their citizens."

Unfortunately, just as he was about to teleport outside the town to return back to the Verdant Blossom Branch Alliance, satisfied with what he had seen, his instincts seemed to have taken control of his body once more, making Aurus slowly inch towards one of the townspeople, who was currently carrying a few planks of wood over their shoulder.

Thankfully, at the very last moment, Aurus restrained himself as he watched that person carrying wood walk farther and farther away from him, letting out a sigh of relief as he muttered to himself, "I shouldn't kill any person here. After all, they haven't done anything bad."

"Then again, it's kind of bothersome for me to have to suppress this instinct," he continued. At this point, it seemed that the bloodlust his body had awakened had now more or less merged with his rationality, with Aurus not noticing that he was thinking of releasing some of the stress brought about by the bloodlust he was feeling.

Under the facade of still having control over his body, Aurus thought to himself, 'I should probably kill one of the people to satiate the bloodlust my body is feeling. After that, I won't kill anyone else and leave this town to head back to the alliance. I've already made enough progress in comprehending my Epiphany as is.'

With that in mind, he teleported throughout the town to search for a person that looked the most arrogant out of them, thinking to himself that by killing one of the arrogant men, there would be less people that would fall prey to the man's future incidents.

Fortunately for him, it did not take long for Aurus to find one that fit his conditions. Currently, the man was carrying a stack of wooden rods on his shoulders to one of the three spots in town. With a slight frown on his face, he muttered curses every once in a while as he wondered why he was doing something like this although the moon had already taken the sun's place.

Watching the man from far away, Aurus then used his mastery over the element of Wind to slowly create a breeze in front of the man, blowing away some of the wooden rods the man was carrying on his shoulders.

Seeing that a few wooden rods he was carrying had flown away out of his grasp, the arrogant man could not help but mutter a curse as he chased after the rods that were being carried by the sudden breeze that blew at him. While chasing after the rods, the man could not help but wonder why such a strong breeze would blow throughout the town at this time, remembering that the weather as of late did not dictate any storms or anything like that.

Nevertheless, he continued to chase after the rods until eventually, the rods slowly rolled along the ground, prompting the arrogant man to curse out, "Damned rods. Why do they have to be so light for them to be carried away by the wind?"

As he muttered this to himself while slowly picking up the wooden rods that had finally stopped flying away from him, he soon noticed that he was inside one of the many alleys scattered throughout this town. With that in mind, he could not help but mutter to himself, "Well, that's weird. How could the rods be blown away to one of the alleys?"

"Unless…" Unfortunately, just as the arrogant man had realized what was going on, the sound of something piercing through flesh softly resounded throughout the alley, with the arrogant man as to what was going on.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Though, it did not take long for the man to find out what was actually happening as he soon noticed drops of blood appearing near his feet. With that, he let go of one side of the rods he was carrying as he soon felt a warm liquid trickling down his face.

As he touched it with his free hand to see what this warm liquid was, he noticed that his free hand was now covered in red. It was at that very moment that he realized what was going on, instantly fearing for what was about to happen next.

Unfortunately for him, it was around this moment that the vitality in his body had slowly withered away as he fell to the ground with a thud. As his blood gradually coated the wooden rods scattered around his body, a jade-like figure appeared in front of the man's corpse, the aura surrounding the figure being that of euphoria.

A few seconds later, this jade-like figure was soon surrounded by a large mass of green energy particles, far greater than the mass the jade-like figure had ever seen before. In one go, these green energy particles were soon absorbed by the jade-like figure's body as the being soon muttered to itself, "To think that one human would allow my understanding of the Epiphany of the Tempest to instantly jump up to Level 13…"

"I think it wouldn't hurt to bring justice to a few more people…"

"…right?"

…

While that was happening, one of the townspeople in the town Aurus entered hastily made his way to one of the spots where most of the people converged. In the middle of this convergence were three people, with the one at the center radiating an aura of solemnity and magnanimousness at the same time.

Swallowing his saliva as he wondered whether it was the right moment to talk about it, the person eventually mustered up his courage as he walked closer to the person at the center, saying, "Town leader, we have a problem."

"What is it?" the man, called the town leader, asked in response.

"We've received reports that one of our able-bodied men has been killed in one of the various alleys of our town, with no one being able to find the culprit that did it," the person explained.

In response to the townsman's words, the town leader went silent for a moment before asking, "Is that all?"

The townsman shook his head as he continued, "According to one of the eyewitnesses, the incident only happened around ten minutes ago. And…"

"And what?" The town leader urged the townsman to continue.

"And…that's only the first report we've received."

"…" Hearing how there were more people killed in town without him knowing, the town leader could not help but become silent as he pondered on what to do next.

Eventually, one of the people by his side looked at him and asked, "Well, what do you plan on doing next, Sir Argentum?"