CHAPTER 86: CH86 SERIAL KILLER.

Kahn was a man of many talents.

He prided himself on being the most versatile man around.

Magic theory, advanced combat, and computer literacy.

Among all the skills he had honed over the years, these three were his most used.

Being a half demon, he wasn’t allowed to wield Aura, but with the aid of a woman... whom he considered to be the strongest woman alive, he had learned to fight.

Not just as a mage but as a true warrior.

That woman took him out of the slums, polished him into a gem, and now...

"I’ve turned into a serial killer."

Tossing his spear straight at the stray student hiding behind the corner of the hallway, he whispered as the spear jabbed into the poor kid’s head and killed him.

He wasn’t averse to taking a life.

As far as he was concerned, his kill count far surpassed a thousand, but this incident was the first where he had officially murdered children.

Compared to most of the eccentric entities in Pathfinders, he prided himself on being sane, and yet the more of the children he killed, the less so he felt.

"I should have passed on this one."

The organization had undergone a recent change. Their former boss was mysteriously assassinated and replaced by his second in command.

It was pretty obvious who and why he was killed, but nobody questioned the new change.

The new boss was strong... so strong they could actively influence Scarlet... his Master, who was equivalent to a Saint.

To wield that much influence led them all to believe the new boss either had an extremely powerful unique skill or had attained the rank after sainthood.

Something which hadn’t been done for over a decade.

Anyway, this new boss’s first case of business was the destruction of one of the four pillars.

Such a scale of destruction would breed chaos and fuel the manifestation of more Rifts around the world.

Chaos was Pathfinders’ motto, it was their creed, and the only form of thanksgiving they could give to their God—

The Abyssal One.

Kahn wasn’t one to vibe with those cultist nonsense.

He believed Gods did exist, but to him the Abyssal One wasn’t a God.

Just a calamity using those poor fanatics to break out of its shackles.

His Master had ended up getting caught in this nonsense decades ago, and as her disciple it was his duty to stick with her.

She was the only one he had, and if becoming a murderer allowed him to stay by her side, he wouldn’t hesitate.

"Better luck next time... I guess."

Walking to the bleeding corpse of his making, he grabbed the base of his spear and swiftly unplucked it out of the dead student’s head.

He then gave his condolences and flicked the tip of his spear to get rid of the blood.

"I never offered that poor girl my condolences."

He might be a hypocrite, especially knowing he wasn’t going to back off from killing anyone that got in his way, but at the very least he wanted to be respectful to the innocent.

"If reincarnation exists... I hope she finds a lucky one."

Clasping his palms together, he offered a light prayer.

Only after he was done did he realize maybe he shouldn’t have prayed to the Abyssal One.

"What an unlucky child!"

She had been the first he killed, and now here he was leaving her fate at the hands of a twisted entity... believing itself to be a God.

Both scenarios were caused by him, and now he regretted everything;trying to sympathize with his victims.

It felt awkward, so he stopped thinking about it and marched through the hallway unbothered.

He might appear casual, but he had a clear destination.

The origin... the starting point of all the holy runes that now engraved the floors of the academy.

Those runes were extremely dangerous, not for him particularly, but for the full demonic members of the organization.

They had been specifically inscribed to not only burn demonic entities but strip them of half of their mana.

To put into perspective how dangerous it was: it would be the equivalent of taking off 35% from the 70% of fluids in humans.

And this type of magic was specifically targeted at demons.

It was less effective on half-bloods and quarter-bloods, but to full-fledged demons, not only would their strength halve, but their form would begin to break apart due to the instability the reduction would cause.

Scarlet could fight it off somewhat because of her strange immortality and the rank she had attained, but that wouldn’t last for long.

The longer she stayed exposed to the runes, the more her defenses were shattered.

She might still have her immortality even then, but she would be so vulnerable that the possibility of her getting captured wouldn’t be out of place.

"The mana trail leads here."

Arriving in front of a door with a wooden texture, he crouched and caressed the ground.

His crimson eyes glowed faintly and his vampiric nature began to take hold of his body, but the increasing changes disappeared just as the ground flashed a golden glow.

He quickly removed his hand from the ground and watched as the glow snaked across the ground and squished underneath the door.

"The origin!" he muttered and kicked the door open.

The room on the other side was furnished but devoid of life.

A simple office with bookshelves all around.

Walking inside, Kahn looked around warily and finally arrived at the table in the room.

He looked at it with deciphering eyes.

At first, he saw nothing, but after shifting into his vampiric form once more, the table began to vibrate and pulse with golden lines.

"Gotcha!"

With a spin of his spear, he unleashed a series of slashes that completely shredded the table into pieces, leaving behind an ink container full of golden essence.

"This isn’t the origin."

Runes have an origin or a catalyst point.

It was what directed the flow of mana through the patterns and when destroyed, the flow of mana was cut and the effects destroyed.

For a rune big enough to engulf a school the size of a town, it would need a hotspot of mana which was also limitless.

It wasn’t a mystery to many that underneath the academy grounds lay the ceremonial blade that was once supposed to slay the demon king, but even further from the blade were leylines, which channeled mana through the earth.

This particular office was directly underneath one of those leylines, and the ripples of the runes had led him here, but it turned out it was false.

"If the origin isn’t here then where is it?"

Observing the golden ink in his grasp, he wondered if he had overlooked something.