He could see humans lined up towards the altar.
At the top, Darrian was forcing them to lay on the altar then proceeded to slit their throats, letting the blood flow freely onto the altar.
Somehow the altar seemed to absorb the blood spilled on it and Kiel could see threads of red sparks float up and enter the shining red orb floating on it.
It was a gory sight, and Darrian seemed to enjoy killing his fellow human beings.
Scum!!
He looked around and found that the cavern was old and the altar seemed ancient.
Then he overheard a conversation between the two masters who were 30 meters in front of him.
########
Shiryuu was observing the sacrifice ceremony and spoke to Ryujin beside him:
"Pity Argus was dead, his replacement is not even half as competent as he is."
"I do agree, but that is not a problem as long as the quota is met.
What is troubling me is that outsider, Kiel.
He has been snooping around a lot."
"Shall we kill him?"
"I'm not confident we can.
He is a battle genius.
He learned my "Instant Step""
"What's so great about it?"
"I am considered a genius in swordsmanship, yet it took me a decade to learn and master to use the skill.
It took him only 1 week to learn and be proficient in it."
Both masters went quiet.
"Should we ask the Lord to do it?"
Ryujin shook his head in resignation.
"Say, how did he survive that cursed Orb?"
"He is either very lucky or very powerful.
Now he is out, so he must have acquired that inheritance too."
"Can the lord defeat him?"
"He should be able to. Afterall he is undying. Even the previous champion was defeated by him and killed"
"That legend Thorgen Angvil?"
Ryujin nodded.
"That was centuries ago, is that guy even real?"
"He is.
My grand master had told stories of how a foreign man had once arrived and defeated the Lord once.
He was very strong.
My great grand master was no match against him.
The fight had been swift and brutal.
I recalled my great grand master and said that he survived purely from the assailant's mercy.
Had he swung his sword down. Our dojo would cease to exist."
"The Inheritance Orb had been a convenient way to send people away. But it was not foolproof"
"What do we do?"
"Patience. Let the lord worry about him. We just needed to do our task perfectly."
Shiryuu nodded and proceeded to watch over the sacrifice operation.
########
Kiel felt betrayed. Towards the city lord, Kiel had not felt much. But towards these two, he felt gratitude for helping him learn new skills and polish his skills.
They had made use of his vanity and greed really well.
He had been so gullible it was laughable.
In his past life, he was like this.
This life, he had also repeated the same mistake.
In his anger, Kiel slapped himself hard.
The two masters and the guards near Kiel heard the slap and all of them turned to look at him.
"INTRUDER!!! Kill him!!!" One of the guards shouted while charging at Kiel.
Kiel pulled out his weapons.
"Let me purge you scums to atone for what you did!!"
Kiel had easily overpowered everyone in the cavern.
Killing the guards was a piece of cake.
Killing Shiryuu Yamada was no challenge.
Killing Ryujin was a bit hard because he could use Instant Step to escape.
But because Keil's mana pool was higher, he too died to his blade.
Kiel slowly made his way to the center of the cavern.
Darrian was shivering and scared stiff. Kiel killed him anyway.
The snob was still shouting gibberish while his head was being cut:
"You won't get away with this. He will kill you!!"
"You got it wrong, he will die to meet you soon."
Kiel whispered.
All 3 were killed and surprisingly, they each dropped a skill page:
"Skill Page: Improved Endurance(B)"
"Skill Page: Instant Step(S)"
"Skill Page: Mana Sight(B)"
In this order.
Hesitating between the two B rank skill and finally decided to settle for
"Mana Sight(B): Grants the ability to see mana, able to determine the grade, type, density and mana flow."
It was strange that all three of them have such a unique skill set.
Regardless, at this level, hardly anyone could defeat him.
He was at the level cap of this level.
The entire cavern was quiet.
Kiel turned and saw the Orcs in cages, there were about 40 of them, males and females.
He approached their cages and killed them all amidst roars of anger and indignations.
He called up the tower clear and saw that the orc annihilation was finally completed.
Two quests left;
Protecting the city from destruction
Killing the human traitor aka the necromancer aka Damien Bloodseal.
After that, he approached the altar in the middle of the cavern.
As Kiel got closer, he saw the Orb seemed to be pulsating and glowing brighter.
Hence he approached to read the details:
"Blood Vitality Orb(A)(Incomplete):
Consuming the Orb will extend User's life by 50.
Consume 100,000 lives to complete.
Current: 99,900/100,000"
With this, the cause of city destruction and the traitor was obvious.
Kiel pulled out "Fine Steel Sword(C)" from his Inventory Ring, then he swung his sword to destroy this vile thing.
He had wanted to use Thorgen's sword to avenge himself.
From his back, his "Sixth Sense(C)" blared and he felt a rush of mana rushing at him.
Kiel quickly dodged to the side.
Rolling to the side, Kiel turned around and saw Damien.
"What a pity. You shouldn't have poked your nose into where it don't belong"
"Now I have almost completed this and I have to thank you for all this."
As he fought with Damien. Kiel found to his dismay that Damien was better at every aspect.
Speed, Strength, mana pool, health pool and even health and wound regeneration speed was simply absurd.
A cut would heal in seconds. While Kiel's wounds would take much longer to heal.
Even Damien's swordsmanship and fighting skills were better than his and melee fighting was not his main class forte.
He was a freaking necromancer. Why was he not throwing spells but fighting with a damn greatsword with such great strength and speed??!!!??
Damien might also be level 20 but his centuries of experience was not something Damien's 30 years of fighting and surviving in the Tower could compare too.
Besides, this was just the second level challenge. Kiel did not have enough time to grow yet.
During the fight, Damien completely turned into a new person.
He did not hold back on his bragging and trash talking at all.
Stupid antagonist syndrome.
In hindsight, maybe loneliness had made him somewhat demented.
Damien casually mentioned that this was not his first time doing it.
However, previously he had always consumed the incomplete Orb because there was not enough sacrifice.
He had lived through a few cycles of the humans and Orcs killing each other where both barely survived.
All that bloodshed was used to fuel the Orb.
He also had subjugated all the previous generations of Head of City Guards, Dojo Masters and other people of power to help capture and prepare sacrifices.
After every round, he would have to start anew. When the humans were almost wiped out and the orcs were scared away by him and were killed en masse.
However, he lacked the strength to destroy their city.
Even if he could, he would not.
Everytime it took him decades to recover the human population and he would repeat what he did.
Although he felt it was a pity the Orcs were wiped out, Kiel's action this time had helped him a lot.
He was only short of a hundred then he would have the most perfect Orb.
According to Damien, it would reach S rank and finally gave him immortality.
Kiel was forced back again and again.
It seemed the fight was hopeless.