71 The Second Portal

'Carelia'

Darkscale immediately recognized the screaming voice. It was her, the artificial intelligence that betrayed him and kidnapped Star Leaf for who knows what reason!

He felt the pain in her quivering and angered tone and was greatly surprised: this was maybe the first time that he heard her getting so emotional.

The snake felt also the great wave of killing intent coming from her. His eyes narrowed: it was so strange hearing the normally gentle and calm Carelia release such devastating amounts of killing intent.

She had the will to kill. She had the will to kill him!

Plus, this wasn't the killing intent of a newbie. Darkscale was sure that he couldn't release such an insane amount of killing intent even having murdered plenty of creatures in his life. To feed the array that he secretly created to communicate with Spike, he killed a disturbing amount of creature in the last year of his life and he didn't get close to even touch that level of killing intent.

Even a lifelong warrior like that Fire Earth warrior he fought in the Blood Woods didn't emanate such a powerful killing intent.

"Who are you Carelia? "

Silver strands of Ghost Energy emerged from his body and spun together creating a simple energy probe. The instant it formed, he sent it towards the center of the place where he was, trying to see what was happening there.

The voice of Caralie came from there after all, and even the energy scent of his Blue Cave was pointing him towards that direction.

During the way towards the center, the energy probe moved between large broken pillars and fragments of those eye-shaped statues that were everywhere. There were remains of dead creatures even here, but they seemed a little different from those that he already saw in the other parts of the cave.

This corpses didn't emanate any radiation at all, almost as if they were the remains of simple mortal creatures. At least that was what Darkscale would have thought if he hadn't noticed the sign of teeth on the remains and already saw one of those ghosts feed on the bloodline force of a cadaver before.

Evidently, the remains there were all drained by ghosts.

The moment Darkscale realize this, he started to proceed with more caution.

Maybe one of those mindless spirits filled with bloodline energy was still around. Although he had a method to rapidly kill them and even get stronger thanks to their energy, he could only do so with his real body!

If one of them managed to surprise him, his energy probe wouldn't be able to resist a direct hit from one of those being. To not be forced to send another energy probe, he needed to be careful.

It took only a couple of minutes for the snake to feel the presence of a ghost creature. He looked around more carefully, and finally, he saw it: a large energy from hidden inside an even more bigger rib cage.

It was a large horse, at least three times the size of a common one, with six bat wings. At first it looked like it was in trance, vacant eyes and immobile body.

However, the moment the energy probe started to move again towards the center, a hellish sound come out from the dormant ghost and the horse started to run behind the energy probe with incredible madness.

Darkscale was surprised by the complete lack of awareness of that creature. He could feel the incredible amount of energy inside it, making it clear that when it had a body it was thousands of times stronger.

How could something that powerful become so lost that it tried to attack a simple energy probe with such ferocity?

The thing that made him worry the most was the thought that he almost became like that. If it wasn't for the blue energy, he would without a doubt be the same as that crazy horse.

Darkscale commanded the probe to speed up, and the grey ball of energy soon left the horse in the dust. Even the serpent felt that the speed of the probe was a little too much.

'This is strange, it almost feels like my Will Manipulation has improved a lot'

This idea was pretty strange as he hadn't trained his Manipulation in a long time, but Darkscale really felt that the mental control of his own energy has become easier. His energy flew more rapidly, moving at his minimum thought without any problem.

"It's the bloodline?"

The snake had noticed that after he absorbed the insect he became to "remember" different things that he was sure he never actually learned. It wasn't like his Dreams, but something more general. It was like if someone put information directly into his brain and then told him that they were there to begin with.

It was a very strange feeling indeed, different from the Dreams where he could only learn things if he paid close attention to what was going on.

The bloodline power was also having other effects on him: he was stronger, he noticed that when the energy moved inside his body and when he killed that violet Buddhist traitor.

Maybe his Will Manipulation had also become better thanks to the bloodline power? Who knew.

Leaving this thought on the side for the moment, he kept guiding his energy probe towards the location where he could sense the Blue Cave. After a while and thankfully without any other encounter with the ghosts, he started to see a large portal.

It was eerily similar to the one he used to enter in this cemetery: there were plenty of statues of the same masked figure, this time holding a large eye with both hands and there was another large red screen that was blocking the entrance.

Darkscale felt a distinct calling coming from the red energy. The feeling of familiarity was many times stronger. It made his blood throbbing like never before. It was incomparable to the feeling he had when he encountered the ghosts filled with bloodline energy.

This seemed to have become a recurrence, the deeper he went, the stronger the resonance with his bloodline energy. Then what would happen if he got to the deepest level of that place? What was hidden there? Because all those portals and screens had to protect something, right?

This couldn't be a simple tomb, like Devassa said.

The probe moved around, passing from the large red screen to the person sitting in front of it. It was a young green haired girl, with an iron ring floating right in front of her.

'What is happening?'

Star Leaf was surrounded by an incredible amount of Ghost Energy that formed a large silver flame dozens of meters high around her.

"So much Ghost Energy!"

Darkscale was almost not believing his senses: the amount of energy that floated around Star Leaf was even bigger than the one he had gathered to fuel his secret message formation!

The more shocking thing was that this energy seemed to come directly out from the little iron ring! How was it possible? Where did it come from?

After thinking about it for a few seconds, the serpent's eyes narrowed and he started shaking in anger.

'Damn you, Carelia'

What low on energies! What almost shutting down! That lying bitch was definitely lying! She must have found a way to store that energy somewhere else!

'But why a MAID would need so much energy?'

He looked at the silver flame more closely and saw that from it, began countless thin red threads that connected to the large red screen.

'No, there is no way that she predicted that we would get into this cave... there must be another reason...'

However, the serpent didn't manage to think of one. Carelia had lied and implored him countless time to gather more energy. It certainly seemed like it was something she needed a lot, but why? And most importantly, why not doing it herself?

She seemed able to do things on her own, then why she felt the need to stick around for so long?

Countless questions started to float in the young snake's mind while he observed the silver red threads that were clearly tied to open this second red screen.

He then looked at Star Leaf more clearly and he felt a twinge in his chest.

Inside the silver flame, the young girl had a painful expression. The flame trembled at each breath she took, seemingly going to extinguish itself at any time. Every three breath she spat out a dark-colored gas, wailing in agony.

Darkscale could immediately sense his own energy imprint in that gas. That energy came from him.

'The blue link!'

Was that the energy that went missing when he purified the bloodline power? That would mean that the blue link between him and Star wasn't gone, but for some reason, he couldn't feel it as well as before. It was still there though.

'Yes, that must be the case...'

Star Leaf suddenly opened her reddened green eyes. Fury and pain could be seen inside them. A voice that didn't belong to her came out of her red lips.

"YOU DARE TO COME HERE?"

A wave of silver energy pushed toward the energy probe. The last thing Darkscale could see before his probe was completely destroyed, was the face of Star Leaf. The moment after the attack, he saw the pain in her expression and felt that she was even in more pain.

Thousands of meters from the place that his energy probe had been destroyed, Darkscale moved his gaze towards the portal. His eyes seemed able to penetrate all the statues, rocks and corpses between him and Star Leaf.

"I dare doing much more. Just wait and see."