Noticing that Aza'zel didn't respond, Wendy chuckled to herself. "What? Aren't you fond of drinking blood? Why not try drinking the infected blood of mine? You don't seem to be bothered by the evil miasma the last time we met in the dungeon."
Aza'zel realized that he wasn't really circulating his source energy when Wendy sneaked up on him the other day, as he was too engrossed in the desire to drink from the evil blood pearls.
It wasn't difficult for Wendy to connect the dots when she recalled his habits of drinking blood and the fact that he seemed heedless of the evil miasma—it seemed as though any blood, infected or not, was quite the nourishment to Aza'zel.
Aza'zel quickly calculated the pros and cons of helping Wendy recover at this moment.
Aza'zel turned around, giving his back to the woman as he exhaled lightly and said, "You're in deep trouble with Kane as it is, perhaps your best option is to seclude yourself here for the foreseeable future."
Wendy growled. "You think I'm afraid of Kane?"
Aza'zel responded offhandedly, "What's your fear got to do with anything? You've already lost the initiative since his men had already infiltrated the lineups of the aristocrats. Minor positions they may be, but they're solid positions nonetheless. Your men will struggle here with life and death while his men springboard from the Nameless Valley to central."
Wendy was momentarily tongue-tied, while Aza'zel continued, "We agreed to cooperate as partners, but you went ahead and sabotaged yourself. You're supposed to be my alley, not my subordinate; I would at the very least expect you to carry your own weight, not drag me down with you."
Wendy gnashed her teeth and said, "Then, consider this as me owing you a favor outside the bounds of our future corporations! How about now?"
Aza'zel raised his eyebrows and asked, "Don't you mean a life?"
"Of course not," Wendy responded coldly. "Even if I were to be contaminated and mutated into an Abomination, there'd be a sliver of chance of maintaining my consciousness. In one way or another, I'd be alive."
Aza'zel hummed with his arms crossed. "You'd elevate from this cave-dwelling prison to a larger prison, be it the dungeon or the Nameless Valley; you'd still be imprisoned."
"Well," Wendy also crossed her arms, chuckling. "No prison is an eternal prison, and no captive is bound to remain in captivity for eternity. This Nameless Valley and the Lower Abyss as a whole, what's the difference between the two? As you've said, they're essentially all the same; a prison."
Aza'zel remained silent for a moment and responded later, "I'll think about it after I handle something urgent. Though, that favor will most likely cost you dearly in the future."
Wendy scuffed, watching as the young silhouette disappeared into the dense waves of heat that radiated from the cave entrance. She sighed, wiping away the sweat on her forehead before retreating into a deeper layer of the cave. As she walked, her skin often blistered and other times sparkled with a flaring hue, undergoing subtle yet unnoticeable mutations.
Arriving at the base of the mountainside, Aza'zel found no trace of the woman who brought him over. He silently observed his surroundings, wondering where she had gone off to.
That thought quickly dispersed from his mind as he made for the entrance to the dungeon deep into the Nameless Valley.
Some people go into the Nameless Valley while others go out, it was a standard routine many began to practice. Among those who left the valley, a woman stepped out with a wide robe concealing her figure.
Barely had she pulled a marginal distance from the valley when a host of vultures encircled her immediate perimeter, their eyes transmitting unspeakable evil.
"You stench of Thorns' lackeys," said a middle-aged vulture, his tone rough and edgy to the listening ears. "You think you could smuggle your way out simply because you slapped a robe over that delectable body of yours?"
Lascivious chuckles echoed his sentiment all around as the group of hunks inched closer to the woman.
"I have news that would interest Kane," the woman quickly clarified her stance, raising both her hands to display her cooperative attitude. "It's about the young man suspected to be Gray Rain's leader…"
"Yeah yeah, everybody and their mothers have something to say to the boss," the man interrupted her long-winded speech, a hint of cruelty in his eyes as he gestured to a man who circled around. "We have our specific methods to validate… Hehe, don't flinch, this is just protocol."
Before she could speak again, an iron-like thick elbow constricted around her neck, followed by a heavy bag descending to cover her head. The group made quick work of the woman to bundle her up and lift her along, their laughter echoing as they sped off toward a remote area.
Many vultures were drawn to the mysterious Gray Rain group that joined the contest of the strong in the Nameless Valley recently, Although they had the fewest numbers to tally, each of their members displayed a combative force equal to what Kane or Lady Thorns displayed on the surface.
Ever since then, whoever survived an encounter with one of the girls boasted of knowing something new about Gray Rain, but those with the most inclusive information were the survivors from the batch that attempted to hire Aza'zel and Tu as labor boys.
They didn't know much, but they knew for sure that Tu was listening to the commands of a young man who had a different dress code from the remaining girls. This detail sold him out to be the group's leader.
Even though the Watchers never declared their intentions of expanding into a group like Thorns and Shadows, their strength placed them up there with the de facto leaders of this region in the Evil Ground. Thus, Gray Rain became the uncrowned third de facto leader in the camp.
This was a miscalculation on Aza'zel's part since he hadn't expected the girls to be so high profile when they went out. However, considering their background and upbringing, especially with the violent tendencies buried deep in their bones from the consistent domestic abuse they've suffered, perhaps they held just as much hatred toward the vultures as they did toward the myriad races.
Aza'zel began to second guess himself whether it was good or bad to have sent them out to vent all alone in the dungeon as he made his entry to the first level.
A mystic force in play sent every batch of entries to a separate channel within the dungeon. The interval per entry allowed groups of vultures to venture inside in batches, but there existed rare cases of solitary explorers, much like Aza'zel at the moment.
If the girls went in separately, the chances of running into some of them on the way would greatly increase.
Though, Aza'zel didn't have any plans to team up with the girls, but rather explore the depths of the dungeon while working on his evolution, one level at a time.
Thus, without particular interest in the first two levels of the dungeon, he followed the source of the evil miasma in a mad dash, ignoring the accumulating crowds of Abominations that failed to intercept his path and thus chased after him.
Of course, there were the occasional unlucky Abominations to have made an appearance when he ran low on energy, thus delivering fresh evil blood pearls to Aza'zel on the way.
As he inched ever closer to the third film of blood membrane, Aza'zel slowly paced down with his high-speed dash, hordes of Abominations hurdling along in his wake.