61 Expanding Influence

From the beginning Lucien already knew the elements could merge, it was logical, even in the modern Earth you could observe, how wind helped fire and how lightning enhanced water.

Since All Lower Paths were either split from some Higher or Middle Path, they could be merged back into a stronger Lower Path or into higher grade Path, but what Lucien had was just a premature merging between Lightning and Darkness that was harnessed by a skill, it couldn't exist by itself.

The Lightning itself lost it overbearing straightforward charging pattern, but gained a sly and cunning movement pattern, striking unexpectedly like a ghost.

The Darkness also lost some of it's shadowy and presence covering abilities, as the Lightning was too overbearing to be completely hidden, but gained a much more corporeal and solid form, by using the Lightning as a medium to manifest without looking like an illusion.

The enhancement on his Agility was boosted further, going till 700 which entered the mid Rank 2, considering this was a Rank 1 Skill, it was heaven defying, it could boost a peak Rank 1 Practitioner, till he was 3 times faster.

Lucien completely disregarded defense, he didn't need to worry with his 500 Strength even if he got hit.

Pouncing forward barehanded, Lucien just caught the weapon of his opponent and chuckled coldly.

"Your life in not in your hands anymore, commander."

With one hand on the weapon of his opponent, Lucien used the other to grab him by the neck and bite. He didn't drink blood or kill him, just turning him into a Blood Slave. It didn't take long before he was finished.

Still holding him by the neck, Lucien ran away while covering himself in Darkness, he didn't want to run into one of the two Rank 3 humans in the army.

Once he was far enough, he let the slave go and told him to follow towards the next Rank 2 target. He didn't have much time before the Rank 3s noticed something went wrong.

After he had a helper, things went by much smoother, one went from and attacked straightforward and the other ambushed, and after turning the practitioner into a Blood Slave, he would let them continue their duty, to keep everything operating normally.

3 days later, all the Rank 2 Practitioners in the army were Blood Slaves of Lucien, 20 in total, nobody suspected even a thing.

Lucien was currently holding the communication device that was much more advanced and was standing at a high point overlooking the mountain.

"Start luring in teams, once you knock them out, call me."

"Lord."

'This is the best way, it would take too much time to hunt them myself. I'll change the menu a bit, I guess.'

'If I was to eat all the Rank 0s that we catch, the army would crumble, but if I'm to eat the Beasts they kill, it would be completely normal, I'll just leave the heads so they can claim the kills.'

Over the next once month Lucien, kept running around turning people into Blood Slaves, and to keep everything out of the sight of the Rank 3 Commanders, he took things slowly. He got around 100 Rank 1s and their whole teams, which meant 400 Rank 0s. His influence was expanding vastly, if he started his own family, he would probably have considerable power in the Empire.

During this period of time, he kept eating the prey of the teams, but Beast population was lowering in the outskirts, they retreated once they found out something was wrong. At the start the teams were able to kill a Rank 1 Beast once every day and Rank 0s were falling like grass, but now Rank 1 Beasts were a rarity and Rank 0s were killed every few days.

Beasts were quite a bit larger compared to humans, even if the existence points they provided were half, it was still worth it, the only problem was it was a one time opportunity, if a Rank 1 or Rank 2 Human entered the Myriad Beast Mountain without an army, chances were they would stay inside forever.

For example if a Rank 0 Beast reached 300-400 kilograms and a Rank 1 reached almost double that, Lucien was getting 1500-2000 points from the Rank 0 Beasts and almost 20 000 from the Rank 1 Beasts, of course many parts of the Beasts were lost in the fights, as the low rank teams couldn't have clean and efficient kills, and the heads had to be presented to claim the kill. If the kills were too low there would be problems from above, so he had to keep appearances.

Apart from losing a couple of the teams to the Beasts or perhaps other human teams, Lucien was enjoying a feast, he couldn't eat all the meat, it was too much even if he continued eating without stopping, as he also had to keep running around turning other teams into Blood Slaves.

The amount of Existence Points he was getting was astronomical, once he hit the 100 000, which took less than the first week, he enhances the Soul Devour Path to Rank 2 directly. Once it his Rank 2, it was not constrained to the 1,10,100 formula, but was bound to the Soul stat, thus from 10 meter Soul Domain it jumped straight to 570 meters, the amount of information almost overwhelmed Lucien.

'I now know anything that is happening in an area of half a kilometer, if I'm in the palace, I can monitor the whole palace, and nobody can feel my Domain, as it is an Unorthodox Path that I haven't even seen in books, what are the chances someone is practicing it.'

'I already have another 250 000 existence points, I should make sure I'm ready for any situation, as the income slowed down a lot after the Beasts retreated, getting more would be a pipe dream, now it's either the army leaving or a big clash between the two races.'