Chapter 402 - Blood of the Living

Cassius took out a bottle containing fifteen units of sacred spring water, which amounted to 0.75 liters. He had not just recovered his strength in the last ten days, but he had also conveniently completed several White Dazzling-level missions together with Rose.

They had all been team-based missions that should have been split among nearly ten people. However, since Cassius had taken them on by himself, he naturally enjoyed all the spoils alone, thus obtaining quite a bit of the sacred spring water.

It was equivalent to the reward normally gained by a Dark Gold Hunter after completing a mission. As for the honorary badge given to him by Herb, Cassius had not yet found the time to submit it to the Hunters' Association. Therefore, he had not taken the resources provided to holders of the badge.

An oil lamp hung on the wall, burning quietly with a steady glow. The bottles of Soul Power and the sacred spring water were placed on opposite sides of the black table.

Under the lamplight, Soul Power seemed light black, emitting a faint grayish mist, as though it were some kind of special icy water. On the other hand, the sacred spring water seemed far more sacred, as if it were gold completely melted at high temperature, radiating strange and brilliant hues on its surface.

Cassius fetched a metal dish and first poured about ten milliliters of sacred spring water into it. After pausing for a moment, he then added an equal amount of Soul Power. However, the two liquids in the dish did not produce any miraculous reaction. Instead, they remained distinctly separate, each occupying a side of the iron dish.

After waiting a little longer, there was still no unusual phenomenon. Cassius furrowed his brow slightly and picked up an iron spoon to stir them together. After several minutes, the mixture still failed to blend. They were as obviously incompatible as oil and water.

"Could they need to be absorbed together by the body to take effect?" He hesitated for a moment, then swallowed the twenty-milliliter mixture of sacred spring water and Soul Power.

A cold and a hot current flowed down his throat into his stomach. They then spread from his stomach throughout his body, moving among his internal organs.

The alternating sensations of icy coldness and scorching heat made every strand of muscle in his body uncomfortably tense. Cassius's limbs tensed slightly, yet his mind was focused on the changes occurring inside his body. The two opposing energy currents dispersed outward from within and finally converged in unison, spiraling as they pierced toward his chest and heart.

"Pui! Ugh!"

Cassius immediately spat out a mouthful of fresh blood and opened his eyes. Fortunately, his body had already recovered to the peak of pugilist, and with a third-level accelerated blood flow, his blood vessels and heart had grown much more resilient. Otherwise, he might have suffered heart damage on the spot, leading to severe internal bleeding. It was evident how perilous the situation had just been.

Of course, high risk came with high reward. Cassius had essentially grasped the key point for fusing Soul Power and sacred spring water, which lay in the body's blood!

He had seen with his Qi that the moment the two special energy entered his heart, some of his blood had been annihilated and then immediately replenished. It felt as though Soul Power and the sacred spring water had devoured some of his heart's blood and then transformed themselves into blood. They then integrated into his entire circulatory system. It was quite clear that blood, or more specifically the heart's blood, was the key.

Cassius immediately wiped the bloodstains from the table, then went to the washroom to rinse his mouth. Finally, he fetched another identical metal dish. He placed one dish on the left and one on the right.

He added ten milliliters of Soul Power and ten milliliters of sacred spring water, which still remained distinctly separated, to each dish.

Cassius waited briefly, then used a fingernail to cut the index finger of his right hand. He first let a few drops of ordinary blood fall into the left dish, then controlled his blood circulation to drop a portion of his heart's blood into the right dish.

At once, a violent reaction occurred in both containers. Human blood seemed to be the catalyst, breaking the inert calm between Soul Power and the sacred spring water.

A streak of platinum-colored flame rose and burned on the surface of the dishes. Cassius's eyelid twitched; no wonder he had spat blood earlier—how could having one's heart roasted by fire not be painful?

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

After about two seconds, the flames gradually died down. Soul Power, which had been as chilling as icy water, along with the sacred spring water, which resembled molten gold, had merged to form a small pool of blood. It still looked like thick, crimson blood, but there were tiny luminescent flecks of platinum within it .

Cassius looked from side to side and noticed that both types of blood, in the end, yielded no difference. In other words, as long as it was blood, it worked. He studied it a bit more and then drank both resulting mixtures. This time, it was no longer as uncomfortable, since it was already a finished product. The last time had been so agonizing because the intense reaction had happened directly inside his body.

Cassius felt as if another portion of his blood had been replaced by that platinum liquid substance! It was about 1.5 milliliters, a very tiny amount indeed.

Cassius contemplated for a moment and then suddenly recalled the sacred spring water he had previously ingested. If he absorbed only Soul Power now, would the two react? Cassius took a deep breath and continued his experiments. He poured out ten milliliters of Soul Power and drank it directly.

"

Ugh

!" Another mouthful of fresh blood burst forth, splattering half the table.

Cassius took a deep breath of the blood-scented air and felt like the process was quite intense. After slowing down a bit, he began coughing up blood in batches. He repeated this process, ten milliliters of Soul Power at a time, many times over.

He continued until his chest pain reached a severe level. He was sweating profusely and twitching slightly, but Cassius finally felt all the sacred spring water in his body react with Soul Power.

Cassius placed his veiny right hand under the orange-yellow lamp on the table. The two golden sacred marks on its surface had turned platinum. Compared to the original sacred marks, they now possessed an even deeper sense of mystery and luster.

Half an hour later, the sacred spring water had been completely consumed, and about half a bottle of the high-concentration Soul Power given to Cassius by Ghost-Man remained.

The two platinum sacred marks on the back of Cassius's hand had now astonishingly become three. After experiencing it multiple times, he somewhat understood what that platinum liquid, capable of replacing blood, really was. It was surprisingly similar to the blood of the spirit created by the Rune of Wisdom! Judging by its characteristics, it could perhaps be called life-blood or Blood of the Living.

The Ouroboros Rune of Wisdom from the Aoyin civilization! Could it be? The origins of the sacred spring water and Soul Power also belonged to one of the five keystone runes of the Aoyin civilization.

Life Rune? Rune of Life?

If that were truly the case, the miraculous powers possessed by the sacred spring water and Soul Power could indeed be explained.

After all, when Cassius used the Rune of Wisdom, he could even create something as strange as Golem Covert Martial Arts. The fact that Golem Covert Martial Arts could absorb life vibration energy was already a monstrous trait among monsters, faintly surpassing the framework of typical Covert Martial Arts.

However, what did it mean that sacred spring water and Soul Power belonged respectively to the Dark Hunter Organization and the Black Rain Manor? Could the Dark Hunter Organization and the Black Rain Manor each possess half of the Rune of Life?

Based on Cassius's experiment just now, where he fused sacred spring water and Soul Power into platinum-colored Blood of the Living... the possibility was not low. In fact, it might even be quite high.

Cassius sat on the sofa and pondered for a long time because of this rather astonishing discovery. He recalled the information and certain hidden truths about the Dark Hunter Organization that he had learned from the veteran Hunter Herb over the past few days.

First, the sacred marks brought forth by the sacred spring water were the hunters' core auxiliary power. Why were the hunters of the Dark Hunter Organization different from the empire's ordinary civilian arcane energy users? Why were these hunters so much stronger? They even possessed high-level combat power comparable to a combat artist.

It all lay in the sacred marks! A sacred mark was a weakened form of Blood of the Living which was able to greatly boost arcane energy, increasing its effectiveness ten times over. One could theoretically have up to one hundred sacred marks; that was the theoretical maximum limit. Though in reality, no one had ever fully saturated their body's cells with sacred marks.

Even the most formidable Chief Mechanist had only reached seventy-nine sacred marks imprinted on their arm. The main reason was that the sacred spring contained a trace of a toxin that induced beast transformation, causing one to lose their rationality.

Every hunter had their own capacity limit, and once the toxin grew too potent, they would fall into corruption. Therefore, each hunter had their own maximum number of sacred marks. After reaching their sacred mark limit, they could no longer increase it.

At that point, the role of sacred spring water was no longer to increase their combat power but to maintain the stability of their sacred mark energy and quantity. Using the sacred marks to enhance one's abilities consumed energy.

After each battle, hunters needed to keep drinking the spring water to restore their sacred marks. That was why the beast transformation leading to loss of rationality was inevitable among hunters.

It was the price for maintaining the number of sacred marks and thus sustaining their combat strength. It was said that if someone could reach the theoretical limit of one hundred sacred marks, then he would no longer need sacred spring water to maintain their sacred marks, since sacred mark energy would recover on its own. However, this was destined to be impossible. No one had ever achieved it in a thousand years.

Though sustaining sacred marks had severe side effects, the corresponding boost in power was extremely dramatic. After half a month of contact, Cassius found that the various arcane energies awakened by these hunters were not very strong on their own. In fact, most did not even reach the standard of a third-rate Covert Martial Artist; they were basically of negligible quality. After all, their development was singular, lacking the all-encompassing strength of a system that developed all three origins.

Yet, their arcane energy underwent a qualitative change under the amplification of the sacred marks, and reached a level comparable to a third-rate Covert Martial Artist! Some arcane energy users with higher potential could even match a second-rate Covert Martial Artist once their number of sacred marks reached a certain point.

As for the number one Shadow Hunter, White Dazzling Hunters, and the Chief Mechanist, their arcane energy had probably reached the level of first-rate Covert Martial Artists.

This system, although it required regularly supplementing sacred mark energy after battles and carried the side effect of beast transformation, still possessed undeniably formidable combat potential and a bright future.

Why did Dark Gold Hunters vie for the slot to become a Shadow Hunter? The backing of powerful forces was one aspect, but their personal ambitions were an even greater factor. Once they became a Shadow Hunter, they would gain the opportunity to bathe in the sacred spring. This was equivalent to absorbing a large amount of sacred spring water in one go.

They could continue until they could no longer withstand it. Some individuals with strong willpower could even increase their number of sacred marks to the limit, massively boosting their combat strength.

Ten days ago, Cassius had tried using sacred marks to enhance his two Southern Dipper fist techniques. There had been a faint effect, but it was not significant. He had originally thought that his number of sacred marks was insufficient and that it would only become effective after reaching a certain amount.

However, today's test proved otherwise. As a first-rate Covert Martial Art, the Southern Dipper fist techniques were of too high a grade, so it made no difference no matter how many sacred marks he had. After all, sacred marks were originally meant to enhance arcane energy that couldn't even reach the third-rate Covert Martial Arts standard.

If Cassius wanted to enhance his Southern Dipper fist techniques, he needed something at the level of the Blood of the Living—namely, the platinum sacred marks manifested on the back of his hand.

He required both Soul Power and sacred spring water as resources to aid him and it now seemed that he had found a way to obtain both. One was through his connection with Ghost-Man, and the other was by becoming a Shadow Hunter and absorbing as much as he desired at the source.

Cassius might even surpass the Chief Mechanist's limit of seventy-nine sacred marks, and maybe even reach the full hundred marks.

He had discovered that the beast transformation toxin in the sacred spring water was not truly a toxin, but the essence of calamity! No wonder the hunters of the Dark Hunter Organization gradually lost their rationality, it was clearly a form of dark creature corruption. Though there were only traces of the essence of calamity, it accumulated in the human body over time. Naturally, this led to corrosive effects and eventually beast transformation.

Conversely, Soul Power also contained a considerable amount of essence of calamity, though it seemed that it was absorbed by the Black Rain Manor's mark during the enhancement process. This also explained why, despite their eerie and sinister abilities, the Hellsing group, who looked more likely to lose their sanity, remained unaffected all this time.

Cassius did not know why both these powers contained the impurity of the essence of calamity but he knew he could filter it out!

Even though the Blood of the Living contained a very high level of the essence of calamity, which was essentially a poison to the hunters of the Dark Hunter Organization, Cassius possessed the Rune of Wisdom.

Its function was precisely to absorb the essence of calamity and brew Blood of the Spirit. Although it had been overloaded recently from creating Golem Covert Martial Arts, it could still be used in the World of Calamity's Tower of Refuge as startup energy for defensive arrays and revival altars.

Cassius could still utilize what was poison to others, creating the value it deserved. With the Rune of Wisdom's filtration, he could easily achieve a state of complete saturation with the Blood of the Living.

He could even replace all the blood in his body with Blood of the Living, thus enabling unlimited use of the Covert Martial Arts enhancements provided by the platinum sacred marks.

In this way, Cassius's short-term goal seemed clear. He would defeat all contenders and secure the one and only Shadow Hunter position.

Back to the present, Ghost-Man was investigating which force had attempted to assassinate Cassius via the Shadow Thorn Organization. If nothing unexpected occurred, that faction was surely related to the Lion King Soss, Solomon the Thorn, or Claire the Siren.

Since one of them was playing unfair, Cassius saw no reason to play fair either. Once he found out who it was, he would simply take that fool out.

However, it was late at night, and all these matters would have to wait until tomorrow to take action. For now, Cassius wanted to test the effect of having three platinum sacred marks on his two Southern Dipper fist techniques.

What would emerge from the fusion of Death's Fang Force and Reverberating Force?