I can lose these guys any time, so I might as well use this chance to raise my cultivation a bit… His next spear caught a wide-eyed girl in the neck before her head and much of her torso exploded outward. Rather than follow after Brud, he led the group of pursuers along a large circular route, running slow enough to make it seem like they might catch up to him at any moment. Like this, he continued to pick them off one by one with his offensive martial skill. In order to keep his supply of energy up, he refined dead and injured disciples that’d suffered from his ranged attacks on previous runarounds, at least until the surviving youths decided to stop following him.

Already? He dropped an emaciated corpse, which was missing everything from the waist down. His hands shook as the euphoric feeling of refinement quickly began to fade. Maybe if I chase after them they’ll be too scared to fight me. Then I can pick them off, and I’ll be able to refine a few more…

Now that there were only eighteen people left, he felt confident in approaching the group head on. All of those that remained were at the peak of Profound Entry, though rather than intimidate him this fact merely excited him into a faster sprint. If he was careful about how he killed them, then he would be that much closer to reaching the middle phase of his current cultivation level. It would be dangerous, and the threat of death was there. Even so, he was confident that he’d survive so long as he gave his all from start to finish.

Though the following battle was riveting and intense, it passed by as a blur. So, too, did the wonderful sensation of refining such powerful people. When all was said and done, Jason lay on the ground with a twisted grimace on his hairless face, his limbs twitching erratically as he pulled in shaky breaths. The comedown of the refinement process was excruciating this time around, his veins afire with a pervasive itch that was impossible to satiate as he writhed on the forest floor, growling and crying, clawing at his body in a futile attempt to quell the burning sensation that had taken hold of him.

Once his shaking had subsided into an occasional tremble, he finally regained control of himself. He was unsure how much time had passed, though whether it was twenty minutes or five hours, it didn’t change the unease and shame that settled in his gut as he realized that he’d killed so many people in the past twenty-four hours that he had lost count.

Am I still me?

He raised his arm and reached for the open sky above, which was only visible through the upper canopy due to the amount of trees that’d toppled over during his mindless rampage. If only Actius were awake, then he wouldn’t have to rely on his secondary core cultivation method in order to raise his strength, which he had to do if he intended to survive in the Haussian countryside. If the talented spirit were around, then he could help Jason to create an Origin Energy amplification arrayment, which would drastically improve his cultivation speed. Only then would the Ancestral Body Technique show more immediate results than the Blood Burning Heart Technique, since the efficiency of the latter was determined by the amount of resources available. With tens of thousands of morally corrupt disciples swarming throughout the nearby lands, he had more than enough ‘resources,’ so to speak. Their malicious nature also gave him an ethical pass on going through with such a plan.

Of course I’m not the same person.

Compared to the chubby teenager that used to spend most of his time playing video games and avoiding his parents, he lived an entirely different lifestyle. He’d lived in two worlds and also an independent dimensional space, the latter of which was entirely deprived of light. An ancient spirit from a third, separate world lay dormant within his spiritual space, a being whose memories he had partially absorbed along with those of the other Neomen. Worst and most drastic of all, he’d eaten human flesh. Even if his body had been possessed at the time, the fact still tormented him even after so many weeks.

I’m not the same. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try to be a good person.

Jason stumbled toward the direction where Brud had fled, stopping at times to support himself against random tree trunks.

To think that he’d have to flee Hauss so soon after arriving, just how long would it take to find Nolan and Nyla in the midst of such a large-scale invasion? Brud swore that they managed to escape the hit squads that the sect had sent after them, which culminated in a battle just outside of Greenwall, in the province of Flora, Verdure. According to the beady-eyed boy, they had made their way north after the clash. Unless they were still in Verdure, the only other place his friends might have been heading is Hauss.

I can’t keep doing things like this. He slowly regained his composure and then hurried along in the same direction. If he intended to look into the whereabouts of his friends, then he couldn’t afford to keep attracting so much attention. Once he stabilized his aura and recollected himself, he planned to put on one of the spare sets of robes that most disciples carried around with them. He’d also force Brud to wear one. After that they would get close to one of the cities that had yet to succumb to the sect’s forces, take off the uniforms and then slip inside with discretion. Once inside, he’d ask around about his friends, specifically the gunpowder that Nolan had taught him to make. If Nolan wound up in Hauss and was taken off guard by the presence of the sect there, then he’d definitely make use of his explosive barrels.

Not only that, he thought as he began to run at a reasonable pace. I might as well make some of my own.

Unfortunately for Jason, he’d already drawn too much attention to himself in the northern area of Hauss. Less than an hour after he made his way back into the war-torn kingdom, he was tracked down and attacked by a large group of over twenty disciples. He hardly got to refine any of them before another group arrived on scene, enough people at the peak of Profound Entry to force him and Brud back into the forest.

Even dressed as regular disciples, he and Brud were always approached and then accosted by the countless bands of fighters that roamed the countryside, which always resulted in a confrontation. Constantly dogged by relentless pursuers, it became apparent that a wide net of searchers now stretched across the region, which was also pocketed with hundreds of enemy camps. No matter how many people Jason killed, he didn’t seem to make a dent in the overall number of disciples.

As things were, his best bet was to wage guerrilla warfare against the disciples in the area, at least until they realized that dealing with him wasn’t worth the price that they’d have to pay. He didn’t particularly mind the thought of battling it, since the original purpose of his presence in Hauss was to avenge his friends. The fact that they might still be alive didn’t erase his animosity toward the sect, since the evil organization had caused so many problems for them that he couldn’t simply forget their unprovoked antagonizing.

He encountered three more black-robed disciples over the course of the next nine days, during which time he killed at least six hundred young cultivators and refined perhaps a fifth of that number. Now that taking so many lives had become a daily thing, he was numb to the reality of his actions. Venara was different than Earth, and he also had to be different if he wanted to survive here. Many terrible things had lost their shock factor since he’d spent so long trapped in the lightless realm dominated by that giant lake of blood. He’d shared that space with thousands of corpses gathered over just as many epochs, and also an ancient devil-like woman, so he didn’t have a difficult time acclimating to the constant bloodshed.

It wasn’t until the tenth day that he was able to infiltrate deep enough into the kingdom to visit an isolated city called Bremst, which had around twenty thousand fear-stricken inhabitants. The kingdom’s intelligence and communications network was in shambles, so nobody had heard from the crown in weeks. One by one, the neighbouring communities fell to the growing presence of the Bloodhand Sect, whose members grew stronger the longer that they were given free rein over the locals.

Bremst was the largest settlement within a two hundred kilometre radius, and by far the largest one in the area that had yet to fall to the sect’s forces. The fact that it remained relatively untouched was strange considering the absence of walls around the city.

They made it inside without any problems, dashing into a slum on Bremst’s northeastern fringes and then rushing to a nicer area of town. Brud appeared incredibly anxious, which was natural considering that he’d refined an ex-comrade just thirty hours before, and his aura had slightly reflected this up until just an hour ago. They’d made a break for the city as soon as his life signal had lost its distinctive taint, which lingered in the aftermath of inner essence refinement.

They did their best to blend with the few civilians that dotted the loosely populated streets, which gave off a hopeless sense of desolation even in the main square. The candles within the street lamps had been spent ages ago, and a large amount of garbage lined the cobblestone streets and dusty pathways.

Where is everybody?

He extended his spiritual sense to its limits so that it just barely encompassed the entire city. Many people were in their homes, though many groups of several hundred had gathered within the larger mansions and estates. People must be gathering with their families.

There was only one other patron in the first tavern that they stopped at, a haggard, middle-aged man that hadn’t heard anything about explosive barrels. Just when Jason was about to leave, the owner of the tavern stepped out from a back room where they’d remained since he and Brud had entered the establishment.

“Don’t listen to anything Dirk says. He’s drunk himself stupid every day since those bastards brought this hell upon us.” A short man, his crooked nose told of a past injury, and the scars that decorated his balding head announced that he was no stranger to a dangerous situation. “Sorry ‘bout the wait. We don’t see much food ‘round here that sits well with the stomach, not since we’ve all been stuck inside the city.”

“It’s no problem.”

“What was it you were asking him about? We might not have heard from the crown in these parts, but there’ve been a lot of refugees over the past few weeks. Word travels even in times like these.”