Hearing his words, Vincent took out an umbrella from his spatial ring and opened it up to cover Leila and himself from the rain as they stepped out of the cover provided by the trees and walked under the thundering rainy clouds. At the same time, Peter stopped dismantling a monster and walked up to Varth.

After a few moments, once they gathered around him, he set up a spherical barrier around them.

A blue globe of condensed magic power formed around them to shelter them from the rain, and even the thundering in the cloudy night sky couldn't reach their ears as the barrier nulled all such sounds.

Vincent closed the umbrella and stored it in his black serpent ring before his eyes lowered to look at him, and he asked, "What do you wanna tell?"

"Everything that happened till now was a ploy set up by the Tree of Evil. It's the actual cause of the disappearance of the citizens of the city of Leslie. The Tree of Evil feeds on negative emotions generated by humanoids. It used the monsters to kidnap humans and demi-humans so that it would be able to entrap them in its roots of nightmare and eat on the negative emotions generated by them in their horrifying dreams until their death."

Varth speculated that the real reason behind the disappearance was the tree of evil, and he wasn't wrong in the eyes of the group members.

"Grim Gore become powerful by absorbing negative energy as it functions like an evolution material for them. I believe it had fed a large amount of negative energy to strengthen its minions so that they would be able to carry out its task in a better way."

At this moment, Leila, Vincent, and Peter mood soured as they found out that there was no extraordinary material whatsoever in these woods. It was just the Tree of Evil strengthening its minions by using a unique method.

'This sucks,' they thought.

Varth continued,

"The monsters were just its minions, which It controlled by using the parasitic evil that ambushed you. The parasitic evil is called the seeds of evil. It takes roots inside of a person's brain and controls the body of its host. After we killed its minions, the Tree of Evil decided to enslave the strongest among us, and that's you. However, I foiled its plan."

As soon as he said those words, Vincent's eyebrows raised in realization, Leila's eyes narrowed in anger, and Peter's mouth parted.

"Everything makes sense now!" He exclaimed as he fisted his palm.

The Tree of Evil had controlled a monster to ambush his sister as It knew that his brother-in-law would save her life and leave himself exposed to unsusceptible danger. A chance it meant to exploit to enslave him. However, Varth had killed its seed of evil before it could even penetrate Vincent's body.

"I want to take revenge for us," Leila said as her slender hand balled into a tiny fist. She was feeling angry at being played like a fool by a monster that not only threatened to hurt and possibly enslave her beloved to death but had also killed dozens of people and caused many to grief out of sadness.

Vincent pinched her nose, and he said, "Calm down. We don't even know where the Tree of Evil is right now."

He wanted to kill the Tree of Evil before it causes any more harm, so he started to perform hand signs to create magic resonating eyes to search for it.

At that very moment, a calm voice sounded in their ears, stopping Vincent from performing the magic technique and telling Leila what she wanted to hear the most.

"The Tree of Evil can only control its seeds of evil from a certain distance that can't be more than several kilometers. Moreover, it has tried everything to stop us from advancing to the cave, from sending all of its minions to attacks us to ambushing both you and Leila. It's highly susceptible that the Tree of Evil is inside of this cave."

The entrance of the cave, as dark as night, was right in front of them, waiting to be explored by someone.

"Wouldn't it be too dangerous to fight it?" Peter felt that monsters with such dangerous names and abilities should be left for the instructors to handle.

"Not really," Varth said. "The Tree of Evil is typically not a strong monster. The main strength of this monster is to enslave other creatures and use them to do its bidding. Without that, it is weaker than most monsters in its realm. I'm certain that we have killed all of its minions, as otherwise, it wouldn't have been so desperate to enslave Vincent."

Peter still scratched his chin and said, "We are just students. It would be better to return to the academy and notify the instructors about this."

"If we do that, we won't be able to keep the extraordinary evolution materials obtainable from the Tree of Evil!"

Not just Vincent, but even Peter and Leila look at him with an expression of bewilderment and surprise.

"The monster gives an extraordinary evolution material?!" They said without thinking.

"Yes, indeed," Varth said. "The name of the evolution material is the Fruit of Evil. It's what the Inquisitor of Night ate to awaken his ability Invasion of Darkness!"

Inquisitor of Night, better known as the Emperor of Darkness, was one of the strongest humanoids in history. After all, he has an army of hundreds of thousands of beasts of the demonic and magical realm working under him.

He enslaved so many beasts by using his ability.

The Invasion of Darkness produces a parasitic seed of evil that can take root in someone's body and control them as ordered.

"So, it's an evolution material that awakens an enslavement type of ability," Peter said. He was amazed to finally understand that the famous Emperor of Darkness controlled these beasts by enslaving them using the seed of darkness.

"It depends. The fruit of evil might awaken a different ability depending on the person that consumes it."

"But it will still be an extraordinary ability. Am I right?" Vincent said as he looked at him.

"Correct." Varth nodded.

"Shall we?" Leila asked as she pointed at the cave.

"Wait, I need to do something first." After he said those words, Varth pulled out a camera the size and the shape of a pen. He then squatted in the center of the grassy fields covered with corpses of monsters and started taking pictures as if there is no tomorrow.

Peter's eyebrows raised as he wondered for what reason he's doing that.

"Why are you taking pictures of corpses?" He asked as he lowered his head, looking at him with a bewildered expression.

"It's to photograph the evidence," Varth replied calmly as the stick the size and shape of a pen in his hand flashed simultaneously.

Vincent heard what he said from a few feet away, and once he walked up to him with Leila in tow, he asked, "Evidence for what?"

"Evidence to earn compensation," Varth replied to them while taking pictures left and right.

As soon as he said those words, Vincent's eyes brightened in realization. On the other hand, Leila and Peter were slow to catch up on his words, but they realized the purpose behind his actions after a few moments.

"Ah, it's understandable!"

The details and difficultly level of the monster's subjugation mission issued by the city of Leslie acting under the jurisdiction of the city lord appointed by the Earth Federation were wrong. The mission was far harder than mentioned. Thus, they are allowed to get compensation in the form of a far greater reward. Of course, they need evidence to back up their words.

The overly muscular and tall corpses of the hairy monsters were evidence.

"It will take a while, so you guys should dismantle the corpses and gather materials."

"I was thinking of doing just that," Vincent said.

"Let's go together," Peter said. He had tried to dismantle a monster just a few moments ago, but he was terrible at it, as he only relies on brute force rather than techniques.

He believed, however, that he will be able to learn a trick or two from watching Vincent dismantling the monsters.

Leila wanted to help them with dismantling the corpse, but Vincent advised her against it due to multiple reasons. She was tired and exhausted, and it will be better if she takes this time to rest. She will get drenched again, and he also didn't have an extra pair of clothing in his ring.

"You can sit here," Varth said as a wooden chair materialized out of nowhere and got placed on the ground near her.

"Ah, thanks," Leila said as she sat down on the chair and closed her eyes, trying to breathe magic power in the surroundings to refill her heart and energy channel with it.

After glancing at her face, Vincent turned around and walked to the highest price of the battle to dismantle its body from precious material. Along the way, he invested necessary experience points into his experience bar to level up.

‹ You've now reached level 5 ›

‹ Gained five attribute points ›

‹ Level 5: 560/1400 experience points ›

‹ You've unlocked the spell matrix Subspace ›

"Hmm?" Vincent glanced at the details of the newly unlocked spell matrix with a look of anticipation on his face.

[ Spell Matrix Name: Subspace

Description: The subspace is a barren island without life. However, it's pretty big and can store a lot of stuff. The subspace can be upgraded by using life force. The subspace can grow up to become a mini world as long as it is regularly fed with life force. You can cultivate trees, magic herbs, and magic plants in the subspace by using life force. You can go inside of the subspace.

Level of the subspace: 0

Required life force to level up: 10000 experience points.]

"I can go inside this place myself?" His eyes glistened in surprise and amazement.

‹ You can store even living things in there. However, they will die as there is no oxygen in the subspace ›

'The second must have been nearing the boundary of ultimate powers as he or she managed to create something unbelievable like this,' he thought as he beamed in excitement.

The subspace has exceeded his imagination!

"Let's distribute attribute points in my stats and then focus on the task at hand," Vincent said in his mind after a few moments.

He licked his lips, calmed down his mind, and invested all of his unallocated attributes points into agility right after.

‹ Your Agility has increased to 74 points ›

He managed to defeat the Behemoth Grim Gore due to his speed. In a battle against beasts without ranged abilities, movement speed works wonders. That's why he decided to become faster.

After distributing attribute points, Vincent's eyes lowered to look at the ground littered with monsters.

"I should start."

He took out his daggers and started drawing red lines on the bodies of the blue-bodied ape-like monsters, one at a time.