125 Gains

“Aaaargh!”

Bulal Blood cried as even his flesh-altering spell couldn’t do anything about the gaping hole in his chest anymore. He stopped using his own spell, enabling Eren to get a hold of himself and create a distance from him.

Bulal Blood was trying to stop the excessive bleeding with both of his hands as he kept crying in pain. For some reason, he believed that his efforts would pay off.

Alas, the reality was quite different.

“Alfem!”

Eren ignored his own body and continued his attacks on Bulal Blood. He knew that his job was almost over. He just needed to hammer the final nail in the coffin, lest it opens up.

Bulal Blood was showered with a new swarm of firebirds while he was trying to salvage the situation with his flesh-altering spell. Thus, his spell was broken, resulting in him receiving a backlash.

“Aaargh!

How can you keep on casting these spells? Aaaargh! Devil… you are a devil in human skin.”

The old demon continued to ramble. He then shifted to making Eren let go of him in exchange for riches and precious ranking resources.

Too bad, Eren didn’t listen to any of his talks. The demon ranker just kept getting attacked with Alfem and Blitz Shards.

Thud!

Eren finally heard the sound of what he wanted to hear. A lifeless body fell to the ground with a distinct thud. He started laughing while crashing to the ground himself.

“Hahaha! I did it. I fuckin did it.”

Eren couldn’t control his laughter which soon turned into a severe cough as he was lying on his back. He had finally secured a huge sum for himself by killing Bulal.

Eren’s condition wasn’t anything he could laugh about. His flesh had been ruptured in various places. He had an odd depression on his stomach where Bulal had punched him.

But Eren knew he’d eventually get back on his feet with his healing spell that he had kept active throughout the battle. As he recovered his injuries one step at a time, he was expelling the foreign mana he had inside.

Eren clenched his fists with a smile on his face before closing his eyes. He would focus on recovering his condition before making any moves.

Eren took some time to get back on his feet. His injuries weren’t completely eradicated. But he could move without any difficulties at this point.

“Let’s check out my gains!”

Eren dusted off his butt and walked back to Bulal’s corpse. First, he confirmed that the old demon really was dead and not luring him into a trap.

Only after making sure that the coast was clear did Eren decide to benefit from the dead. He quickly removed Bulal’s mana signature on his I-Rune before forcefully accessing his storage space.

“Heh! Not bad.”

Eren said as he saw loads of mana quartz lying in front of him. They sparkled with a distinct shine as they reflected the moonlight, which made Eren notice them first.

Eren then moved on to other things Bulal had in store for him. He picked up a worn-out scroll that looked like it was junk. He opened it up and gave it a brief read.

“Hm? This is… A flesh-altering spell!”

Eren raised his eyebrows and looked at Bulal’s corpse before looking at the worn-out scroll once again. This was one of the old demon’s signature spells.

The flesh-altering spell needed something that was defined as a life essence. It would tap into the life essence reserves to temporarily boost the functions of certain parts of the ranker’s muscles. It was a support type spell that could give its users a varied range of results depending upon how they used them.

Of course, there were negative side effects of using the flesh-altering spell for more than one’s body could handle at a time. It would overwork a ranker’s muscles and make them sore. The more the spell was used, the more severe the side effects.

Bulal had found a way around the spell’s side effects using his flesh golem spells. He would extract life essence from his flesh golems and store it inside his life essence harnessing ring. In doing so, he would use the life essence stored inside the ring and avoid the spell’s side effects.

Eren found out the details about the flesh-altering spell and its intricacies. He also found out Bulal’s modifications to the spell as well as his way of extracting the life essence of other rankers.

The most fascinating thing about the spell was that it covered the variants from Meta to Arch rank. It meant that Eren could use the spell well into his Arch rank should he decide to use it.

The spell was of non-elemental type. So there were no compatibility issues with the elements.

The spell couldn’t be called a demonic spell per se. But Bulal’s modifications made it deviant.

Eren pondered a bit before deciding to keep the spell with him along with Bulal’s modifications. He also took out the old demon’s ring that was used to store the life essence of other rankers.

Eren wouldn’t mind using the life essence extraction on his opponents. Of course, he knew he needed to be discreet about casting the spell. Otherwise, he would be frowned upon for using the spells.

“And what do we have here?”

Eren held a stone with runic engravings in his hand. The runic engravings would occasionally shine with blood-red energy, giving off a distinct vibe.

It took a while for Eren to realize what it was. The stone was used as a medium to store the sacrificial energy Bulal had collected so far. The old demon was just steps away from meeting the required levels to go through the breakthrough attempt.

As such, the stone contained enough energy for Eren to advance well into the Awakened rank. The only question was how he was supposed to use it. And how could he avoid mana deviations that might be caused by using a demonic ritual?