Chapter 416: Strange New Concepts

Drake ruthlessly slain the largest and most dangerous of the snake trio, alongside mercilessly killing the raider, who he didn't even cared about its request to consider sparring his life! The bastard had even tried to manipulate him like he had manipulated many righteous magus that had fought against him, saying that he wouldn't dare kill him, and that it was against the righteous beliefs or some baseless crap like that! Drake didn't gave a single damn, however, as he just killed him.

The soul of the man quickly surged out of his soul, as Drake greeted it with a smirk. The soul quickly began to tremble in fear and horror, looking at Drake as if he were the King of Death himself... his very presence was domineering and tremendously strong, even more than before! It was as if now that he was dead, his presence had changed from a powerful man to a god!

"W-Who are you?! How can you... GYAH!"

Drake extended his claw and grabbed the man's soul tightly with them, looking at him with a deep smile on his lips, his eyes shone with a crimson-red glint, despite being yellow-gold. There were draconic pupils within his eyes, impacting the man's soul.

"You and I will become good friends from now on, you're going to tell me a lot of stuff, won't you?" asked Drake with a cheeky smile.

"Gulp..." the man's soul swallowed saliva, despite not having a mouth nor saliva, but figuratively!

Suddenly, a spectral woman made of crimson-red phantom emerged behind Drake, it was Rose, the Vampire, who had become a Blood Ghost some time ago and had been evolving since then. Her whole presence emanated a strong aura of dread and bloodthirst, the man felt utterly terrified! Was this his summon or something like the equivalent to the shadow beasts to them?!

"My lord, you've called me? I have slain around 42 Shadow Beasts by the way! I deserve some praise, right?" she asked.

"Yes, well done. Now, take care of this man for me, don't let him escape." Said Drake, grabbing the man's soul and giving it back to Rose.

"Uaaghhh!" the man cried in horror, as Rose tightly grabbed him. Her bloody soul emanated such a terrifying sense of dread that he could only scream in fear.

"Fufu, are you scared, little man? Don't worry, I am a gentle woman!" she said, as she suddenly swallowed the man's soul into her mouth, she expanded widely and grotesquely!

Rose not only served as strong magical fighter with several unique perks that Ghosts had, but she also had the power of storing souls and phantoms inside of her stomach, something Drake wasn't able to do because he would end up eating them... she was effectively a ghost pouch of some sort!

Without Benladann at his side, Drake wasn't able to charm Undead and force them to obey him, so he had left Rose for the task of capturing them and tightly sealing them inside her stomach until he could later on encroach them with Benladann's Charm Unique Skill, which could even charm souls at this point.

"Hmm, it is very hard to not eat him up, my lord. But I will gladly keep him in my belly until we are done." Said Rose.

"Good job. You've found anything else within his blood?" asked Drake, as Rose had already finished draining the man's corpse of most of his blood as her "treat" which Drake let her have. Blood Ghosts were particular as they required to drink blood to sustain themselves, mostly like Vampires, but they could withstand more time without drinking it.

"I did! A lot of info!" said Rose. She had the power of Blood Reading within her Blood Magic Spells, which allowed her to see anything strange a person ever had in their body by drinking their blood!

"I've detected over 20 different magic circles infused into the man's body and blood, alongside several runes across his entire skin. There are also around five different curses, and they're all about shadows! Oho! I see! I see!" she said.

"Huh? What is it?" asked Drake, extracting the man's mana core, which glowed incredibly black, pitch black like he had never seen before, even the mana cores of the Shadow Crows were purple-colored and not this black.

"There seems to be some hidden technique they used, I cannot find the details but it appears that it makes their mana core undergone a change, a mutation!" said Rose.

"A mutation?" asked Drake in intrigue. He looked at the mana core as Rose flew towards him and touched the jewel with her pale-white hands.

"You see, this special mana core has been infused with some kind of curse that makes it incredibly black to the point of turning like this based in the man's sins, darkness, and hatred within his heart... the more hatred, the eviler deeds, and the more... well, bad he was, the stronger his mana core would become! In fact, this mana core used to be of a different element altogether! How wondrous..." she said surprised.

"Another element? Really? So there's a power to change a person's mana core into another element through the hatred and darkness of their hearts? Interesting, I have yet to acquire Shadow or Dark Element... But I wouldn't want to sacrifice one of my Mana Cores to get another element..." sighed Drake, as he moved near the giant snake that was knocked unconscious and began to cover it with healing spells, the wounds it had quickly recovered, and the creature slowly opened its eyes.

Drake used Dream and illusion Magic to look into its mind, and quickly destroyed a mind-controlling seal on it. he wasn't going to do the same with ever snake though, only this one because he just wanted to.

"Well, you're free now. How do you feel?" he asked, as the snake slowly stood up and waved its head in confusion, and then it looked around.

"Gryshii..." it said, suddenly rubbing its snout over his face, and then licking his face.

"Ohhh! It seems to like you, master!" said Rose.

"I can tell..." said Drake.