CHAPTER 70: SOUL HARVESTER

In an underground laboratory, with a thick column of glass at the center, filled with a murky greenish fluid, was floating the body of a corrupted beast of about seven meters in height. It had a stocky build, broad chest, short legs and long arms.

It had black skin and dark grey fur. Its jaw protruded out and had long pointy canines. It was the preserved dead body of a Disaster class beast, the silver back Kong.

At a little distance from the glass tube were two metal beds, where the dead body of a corrupted beast, a matillo was lying, and a scrawny man in his forties, long curly grey hair, wearing round glasses and a white lab coat was engraving some runes on the body with a dagger.

And on the other bed lied a small girl of about eight years. She was lying unconscious with the same runes carved out on her forehead, arms and legs, as blood was flowing out from the cuts.

After he was done engraving the runes, he put the dagger away and picked up a book lying open on the metal bed beside the beast. The book looked to be very old, the pages had turned brown, and the ink had started fading.

The book was filled with scribbles of ancient runes and runic circles. Various human and beast anatomy diagrams were present. It was filled with scribbles all over, seemed to be a research log of some old wizard.

The man looked carefully at a certain runic circle and then he closed the book. It had a brown cover and the title of it, handwritten by someone was ’Records from the samsara- vol III’.

He placed the book in his dimensional ring and moved between the two beds. He placed his arms over each of the body lying on the bed. Black mana flowed out of his hand and formed two runic circles, one over the matillo and the other over the little girl.

Mana flowed out of the circles and covered the bodies. A blue glowing sphere came out of the matillo’s body, it was bright and wobbling and slowly moved towards the runic circle and after passing through the circle, vanished.

From the other runic circle, the same sphere came out and slowly moved inside the little girls body.

The little girl immediately started shaking violently, her body started transforming, hard leathery skin started forming over her body. Her hair started falling off and jaw elongated forward.

The shaking intensified as the metal bed started vibrating, the man was keeping a close eye and supplying mana continuously.

But the process started turning towards the worse, her eyes opened wide, the transformation halted and blood flowed out of all her facial orifices. The runes engraved started burning and suddenly her shaking stopped and the body went limp, she was dead.

He clicked his tongue, disappointed in the failure again. He stopped channeling mana and the runic circles disintegrated.

Just then someone knocked at the door.

"Come in!"

The door opened and a man in a black robe with his hood on, hiding half of his face, entered.

"Lord Jekyll. There’s been a problem." The hooded man said.

"What happened?"

"Some people have breached the portal in the market alley and have found the warehouse."

"How the hell did they find it!? Didn’t you properly lay the mana channels?" Jekyll roared at him.

"W-we did Lord Jekyll. They shouldn’t have been able to, but...somehow, they found out."

"You morons! All useless fools are filled in my team." He clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"Remove the other portals. If they found one, it won’t take them long to find the other."

"Yes, lord Jekyll."

"Wait. Bring a few pregnant females, we have to hasten the test now. We can’t stay long here."

The man nodded and moved out of the lab. Jekyll turned and looked at the body floating in the tube.

’I’ll definitely succeed and you’ll make the world see what the endless night is capable of.’

******

"I apologize for the rudeness Lord Raguel." Luke bowed as he apologized for attacking him.

"Haha! It’s alright. It was just a misunderstanding."

"And don’t call me lord, Raguel is fine." He said with a smile.

"How can I? It will be disrespectful." Luke hurriedly denied as he shook his head.

"You already threw me away with your punch. Not calling me lord seems respectful considering that." He said teasingly.

"I am extremely ashamed of his behavior, as his elder sister I apologize lord Raguel. Please do let this go just once and forgive him." Layla bowed respectfully as she pleaded.

"You all are making me seem mean here. I didn’t mind that at all. Since we both are of same age, and have exchanged punches, I felt we could be friends."

Layla and the others were shocked when they heard him. The saint candidates, who are famous for acting aloof and treating others like a servant, is asking to be friends with a commoner, it was never heard of before.

A smile crept into Luke’s face. He felt this opportunity to be quite amusing. He could escape from his mistake without a hassle now.

"I’d love to." Luke said with a wide grin.

"Really!? Haha! Great."

They both shook their hands, smiling and excited. Layla, Ruby and Shane stood shocked with their mouth agape.

"But I was curious, what were you doing here and with Mr. Adam’s wife’s bracelet?" Luke asked.

"Oh, that? I was walking down the market road when I felt an ominous energy from the alley. When I checked, I found the portal hidden and difficult to find even with normal revelation spells. I have a special eye you see." Raguel said with a laugh.

"When I passed through the portal, I was here and I saw the anklet lying on the floor. Just when I picked it up to check, you two arrived and misunderstood me for someone evil."

The others nodded in understanding, but Adam had a disappointed look on his face. He thought he had finally found his wife, but he was back to square one.

"I thought you were someone involved with the abductions happening in the city. We are searching for a lead from days, and finally found this portal. But turns out, this was not their base too." Luke said with disappointment.

"Oh. If this small portal has this much dark mana, then their base must be filled with it right?" Raguel asked.

"Seems plausible." Ruby said.

"I think I have a clue. I felt huge amounts of dark mana recently." Raguel said.

"What! Where?" Luke jumped up in surprise.

"When I made that trench, below the river."