"Fuck! Fuck!"
Twice, cursed Eddison.
For one, he hadn't expected Aza'zel to strike so decisively; the young and tender appearance betrayed all expectations.
Another reason was that all the other leaders had picked up themselves and left the scene the instant Aza'zel made his first move. They completely washed their hands clean from the affair, leaving Eddison to himself.
"This insolent woman!" Eddison hissed to himself in anger and fear, but he quickly gathered himself and fixed his expression.
"Wait a moment!" Eddison rushed over, shouting, "Let's not get ahead of ourselves now, alright?"
"I'd stay far away if I were you," Aza'zel interrupted the man's preachings. His tone was mild and assertive, immediately going for the high grounds for the upcoming negotiations.
"I'm not going to kill her yet," Aza'zel added in an even and light tone. "She holds much more of a value alive, isn't that right?"
Aza'zel nodded towards Tu, and the latter chuckled before fetching a thin yet somewhat rustic wire from beneath her raincoat, deftly circling the thin yet flexible alloy around Mask's neck before handing the other end over to her lord.
Aza'zel stored his revolver into the hostler while gripping the thin wire in his other hand. It would take but one forceful tug of the hand, and Mask's head would tumble to the ground.
Aza'zel tested the ropes by pulling lightly, the pressure transmitting through the wire, translating into a squeezing force that caused Mask to gulp and gasp in fear, almost gagging on her saliva as she stood on her tiptoes, instinctively drawing closer toward Aza'zel as though it would lessen the pressure.
Eddison paused over a dozen steps away as he raised his arms and said, "Alright… Alright… Here, I'm not going anywhere, okay? Let's walk and talk, quibbling about these meaningless things won't get us anywhere."
The miasma swirled and began to thicken as the scent of blood and death permeated the atmosphere.
Eddison said, "Environments with highly concentrated miasma easily draw the attention of Abominations, and while the peripheral areas won't host any particularly powerful ones, the maggots will swarm here in the hundreds… thousands even. You can't fend them off with a hostage in hand. How about we get going first?"
Remnant souls inflicted by the miasma and madness would swarm whatever signs of vitality there were in the territory of the Greater Evil grounds. A hint of energy from the source energy, spirituality from the residual souls, and vitality from the leftover blood essence.
These factors combined can fuse into birthing the fearsome Abominations, machines of mayhem with nothing but the most negative of emotions to bring them to drive.
Abominations by the peripheral areas are byproducts of third-rate remnant souls and blood essence at best, as only the weaklings would die in such a place.
However, even weaklings have their strong suits, and one of these strong suits is their great numbers.
"Hold on," Aza'zel suddenly thought of something. "How do you kill the Abominations?"
Tu also realized that they hadn't asked around about how to get rid of these disgusting creatures. So, she curiously gazed at Eddison, waiting for his response.
Eddison's expression faltered, and he tentatively asked in a flabbergasted tone, "You… You know nothing at all, do you? Ugh… It's impossible to kill them, why else do you think evil blood pearls are valuable?"
Eddison rubbed his forehead and said, "These remnant souls are instinctively searching for better hosts to survive, and the evil blood pearls make for a great habitat for most of them. If they can enter one and hibernate inside for a prolonged period of time, they can experience mutations—something akin to rebirth."
Eddison looked deeper into the dungeon as he explained in a heavy tone, "We use the pearls to lure them in, and afterward, we bring the pearls outside for the aristocrats to handle the processing. We don't know what they do with them, nor do we care to know, all we have to do is finish the job."
Eddison sighed.
"Well," he thought for a moment and added, "If you have a method to target their souls directly, that's the best method around their unkillable bodies. However, which among us in the wastelands is supernatural, let alone someone proficient with soul-oriented origin spells?"
Aza'zel's heart skipped a beat.
Just as his thoughts ran wild, a cold yet charming voice echoed in his head—it was the voice of the woman in a bloody red dress; Exsanguinator.
"This place is a perfect cultivation ground for you," she said in a mild tone. "Other than the lack of source energy in some areas, it can greatly boost the growth of your physique and soul if you use me and Soulguider."
Then, the voice faded into the depths of his mind.
Aza'zel didn't need her reminder, because he knew that he could use the impressive amount of blood energy in the evil blood pearls and soul energy in the remnant souls, but he didn't have the subsequent stances for the martial forms.
Even if he could increase the level of his first transformation from third to ninth, that power wouldn't be as refined.
After contemplating deeply, Aza'zel decided to farm contribution points and exchange them for the latter stances of the martial forms, obtaining the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth stances respectively.
A total of seventy-two forms, and if his speculations in the past were correct, these forms would help solidify his foundations and rectify any problems when it comes to efficient power control.
"Have you thought things over?" Eddison asked, thinking that the child was contemplating a temporary truce.
"Yes," answered Aza'zel. "We can move deeper in, but I will keep this hostage with me."
As he spoke, he turned over toward Tu and said, "You can go outside with the evil blood pearls for now. Exchange them for contribution points and purchase a military tent for the team."
Despite her displeasure and reluctance, Tu knew better than to go against the orders of her lord. "As you wish, my lord."
Her tone was flat, not a hint of her emotions divulged through the vocals.
Eddison's lips twitched, but he couldn't say anything at the moment. As things stood, the hostage wouldn't be holding Aza'zel back at all, but it would be pinning him down if a swarm of Abominations flooded the team of three.
"Hey, what's your name?" Eddison suddenly asked, realizing that they had gotten on the wrong foot so badly that they hadn't introduced themselves yet.
"I'm Eddison," he said, "This hostage here is Mask, she's the younger sister of Kane, the leader of Shadows, a hive organization that my squad works under."
"They call me Watcher," responded Aza'zel, nonplussed about the origins of his hostage, as he didn't know what the term 'hive organization' signified.
The only people outside Raksha Town who knew of his real identity and past were his followers and Wendy Sunflower, so they agreed that he'd go by the name Watcher while leading operations outside.
Eddison didn't know whether Aza'zel was oblivious to the existence of Shadows or he was simply fearless of the consequences. However, he knew it was best not to stress things such as subtle threats.
The three waited for a few minutes until Aza'zel was perfectly assured that Tu had already left Nameless Valley, and then, they followed Eddison's lead deeper into the dungeon, each with their own thoughts and calculations in mind.