Chapter 417: Anti-Rune Element

Not long after Neil had woken up, for him being a normal human, the change within him was perhaps the greatest and most prevalent. As he now possessed the demon bloodline. Once this servant of his awakened as a Seeker, he might actually have the chaosblood aspect.In contrast, if a seed of Axel’s sin was planted within an already powerful Seeker. It won’t have such a drastic effect as it would in the foundational stages of a living being, before becoming a Seeker.

From this opportunity, Neil would go from being a worthless human to an extremely high-potential Seeker. Neil had passed out from the core explosion of the 50 assassins. So, he did not witness Axel transforming into a demon. However, this cunning servant suspected Axel of various things. Though Neil had no concrete clue about anything as of yet.

And he dared not ask about it either.

The fundamental change that had happened to Neil did not escape him; he felt a surge of power, and a strange, piercing clarity washed over him. He asked the young master sitting beside the fire with immense hesitation, "Young master, I... feel different? I can’t put it into words, but it feels like something changed, yet nothing changed."

Axel looked at him for a moment and explained, "Well, I gave you a high-energy dosage recovery potion for your bad injuries. It could be because of that."

Neil nodded, believing that explanation. As a mundane human, he didn’t know much about Seekers or other supernatural subjects. But then he remembered the last few scenes he had witnessed in disbelief: hundreds of assassins, and then a complete forest tribe of six armed apekins, all incomparably powerful.

In front of all of that, Axel Nomrad stood tall, butchering the lives of monsters and humans like livestock. If he thought previously that how the young master killed Morin Drake was terrifying, then what was this impossible achievement?

Neil could only suck in a breath of cold air; his suspicions were affirmed even more that the young master was indeed no simple man.

Axel stated, unheeding of Neil’s internal storm, "Let’s go."

Swosh!!!

Axel carried Neil out of the forest using his mana. As for the carriage, it was almost broken and battered, so he destroyed it. Axel also erased all remains of the assassins and the apekins. So that when the Duchess or other nearby authorities investigate this place, they won’t find anything.

Eventually, he dropped Neil off at Ravin City with some encouraging words. The servant, of course, knew of the enormous risks in this endeavor. Even so, he was determined, as Axel reassured him that he could survive through it. After all, Neil was highly adept at intellectual matters.

A part of Axel wanted to tell this servant of his the truth, but Neil could not know of the existence of the demon bloodline within him. He must remain unaware of the power Axel had given him. Only then would he come out of it transformed, in the precise manner that Axel envisioned.

And that thought brought a cruel smile to his lips. While Neil went inside Arclight in his own journey to become something more, to remain a valuable chess piece, Axel had booked a room in a medium-grade inn. To stay the night in Ravin City.

He was holding a specific transparent crystal artifact; it was clear like glass, rough around the edges. But most importantly, there was a specific ash-colored substance in it. Axel had gotten everything he needed to know from Count Halden before killing him viciously.

Though Halden would have been a more valuable piece alive than dead, he would rather not leave someone like him alive who came so close to actually killing him.

Switching aspects in mid-battle was always a perilous endeavor.

This process takes a few seconds, during which a person would be entirely vulnerable to enemy attacks. If Axel weren’t able to block that blade of Halden with his teeth, he would have died without a shred of doubt by now; even the mighty demon bloodline couldn’t save him for that.

The thing in his hand was one of the artifacts that the count had used to negate the power of his runic sorcery for a short few moments. This was an untraceable smoke-bomb-like thing. According to Halden’s explanation, the ash-colored substance inside was the main ingredient.

Shockingly, that substance was the thing that was able to negate the power of his runic sorcery. What this substance was, or where it came from, was something the count did not know. Only the Duchess knew of this.

Axel decided, for now, to call it an anti-rune element.

Furthermore, this was a somewhat diluted version of the anti-rune element. This thing was presumably created or prepared with the cooperation of both the Vex family and the Duchess, not to use against him, but against his powerful grandfather, on the off chance that he returned.

And this mysterious element terrified him quite a bit, because he could not understand it even in the slightest. His runic eyes could not see or detect it. In fact, if he just held this in his hand for too long, a burning sensation passed to his arms.

Even without the anti-rune element directly touching him, its adverse effects were still apparent. The duchess had prepared a complete counter against his grandfather in advance. So, how could she fear him? No wonder Axel felt that this bitch was quite relaxed when he saw her in the Drake Knight Hall.

There were about 5 of these crystal orbs on Halden. He only used two against him. The Vex family had created a non-rune-based outer layer that worked as an artifact. If the crystal’s outer layer were destroyed, the anti-rune element would flow out in a manner almost undetectable to a runecaster’s senses.

Even for a runecaster as special as him, it was just as deadly.

Axel creased his eyebrows. If the Vex family knew about this, and they even helped make this thing even deadlier, it would be right to presume that they would also have much of this element in their hands, as well as the fact that they likely possess a failsafe against this thing—a counter against this counter.

Otherwise, how would they tolerate this thing’s existence? When they were the kingdom’s most prominent runecrafting family. Just the illusory threat of Damien Nomrad wouldn’t be enough for that to be true, or maybe there were more details on this that he was missing.

Halden only knew of the surface-level gist of things as one of the aides of Livia Dusker. He was used for countless assassinations of many influential figures within the Dusker region until her position was slowly solidified.

It seems he would have to send Gareth a letter explaining the current situation and ask him to look into this. Axel felt greatly alarmed by this thing’s existence. If he were caught in a bad situation, especially in a public setting, he would not be able to tap his chaosblood aspect, no matter how much power he held.

He had to find a solution to this thing as soon as possible, either by conspiring against the Vex family or by himself. It was an open and direct weakness that the Duchess could exploit if she went all out to take him out.

Apart from this alarming subject, Axel learned a few more things from the Count. Halden grew up in an assassin sect. From a young age, he knew nothing but killing, which is why he was such a strong enemy for Axel, not because of his strength but for his cunning.

In his teenage years, through many years of plotting, he had barely escaped the assassin sect; he had also managed to remove the worm poison within him, which the assassin sects usually used to control their people.

By coincidental luck, when he was running for his life from his sect hunting him down, wounded and bloodied, he stumbled upon Livia Dusker. At that time, she was Livia Suncrest. The princess of that time took pity on him and saved his life.

The assassin sect then could not do anything to a servant of the princess.

But Livia Dusker, even then as a princess, was extremely crafty; she did not merely save Halden out of kindness but saw value in him. Through him, she maintained contact with the assassin sect of Halden.

The Hand of Umbra was a tiny, nameless assassin sect at the time, but it has since grown into a mighty behemoth; it was arguably one of the deadliest and strongest assassin sects within Suncrest at present. Often taking missions from powerful nobles and influential seekers. They have a branch in every major region of the kingdom.

All the 100 assassins whom Halden had brought with him were an elite batch of killers from the assassin sect’s branch in the Dusker region. Now, this was quite a good bit of information.

If this Hand of Umbra were indeed a powerful assassin sect directly allied with the Duchess, then they would send more and more powerful killers after him, until he was dead. For that reason, he didn’t need to harbor any mercy against this sect, since it was an underground organization.

He could slaughter them to his heart’s content; he was already racking his brains on how to garner an immense amount of despair, to further progress in his chaosblood aspect, to control that terrifying despair existing within that aspect.

Now, with such a good opportunity presented in front of him, how could he not use it? Axel smiled, his blue eyes blazing ominously in the darkness of the room. For the subsequent massacre he was about to commit.