Chapter 86: Purifying Qlipha Crystal

"Really?!" Eri asked in excitement.

"Really." Shido confirmed, and Eri cheered.

One of Eri's most significant problems was the long period that she couldn't use her quirk after using it. She would be reduced to any other quirkless person after using her quirk once.

That was the problem of accumulation-type quirks. Now that the weakness was entirely solved, Eri would have more chances to practice her quirk and wouldn't be vulnerable anymore.

"Yay!" Eri yelled. Fortunately, it was in the late afternoon, so no one was disturbed.

Shido was happy about her improvement and chose not to interrupt her own celebration.

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In the middle of the night, a figure could be seen jumping from roof to roof. The strange thing was, there wasn't any sound being produced. Not a single sound of a footstep, not a single sound of wind created from extreme speed could be heard.

Just pure silence.

The man was about one hundred and seventy centimeters tall, had a lean build, black hair, and matching black eyes. Every single detail of him seemed ordinary and average. There was not a single thing that stood out that could be used to identify him.

Shido didn't need a cloak to disguise himself. Haniel could literally transform him into another person without any trouble. No one would be able to catch him in whatever he was going to do that night.

All of his weapons were named after angels of the Jewish lore. After finally hearing the shadow talking to him, he had more access to previously hidden information.

After creating the four mysterious gem-like orbs in his room, he hurriedly stored them in Haniel's kaleidoscope.

These four orbs could be used to give four other people the same abilities as him, summoning weapons. However, after double-checking with Rasiel, he found out that they couldn't be used immediately.

While creating those four orbs, he thought of his most hated things and events and added part of his energy. Regret that he was summoned here without his past memories; sadness that he couldn't find his parents soon; anger directed towards All for One for involving himself in things that he shouldn't have done.

Because of the strong negative emotions imbued into them, anyone who was given these orbs would turn into a monster.

According to Rasiel, these orbs were known as Qlipha crystals. Other than the name, Rasiel did not give out any more information about them.

Before allowing others to abandon their humanity and turn into a spirit, several steps were needed to be taken beforehand.

He had already completed the first step - creating Qlipha crystals. These crystals act as the power source of their powers when they turn into a spirit.

The second step was to purify it. Due to the toxic nature of Qlipha crystals, they could not be used immediately. The stronger the negative emotions imbued into the crystals, the higher its potential. On the flip side, it also meant that it would be harder to purify.

To turn others into spirits like him, he simply needed to let others come into contact with the Qlipha crystal. After they turn into a monster due to the evil energy, Shido simply has to kill them and retrieve the Qlipha crystals. By recycling it through hosts after hosts, the Qlipha crystals would slowly be purified, eventually turning into Sephira crystals, which would turn a human into a spirit.

That was what Shido was aiming to do today. Perhaps he had thought about too many negative things during the creation of Qlipha crystals, but the crystals in his hands were pure and utter black.

"Sigh, this is going to take a long time to purify all of them..." Shido sighed and muttered under his breath as he made his way to where a notorious gang was hidden.

But he didn't regret anything. After all, the stronger the crystal, the stronger Eri would be, if she chooses to become a spirit in the future, that is.

Back to the gang, it was famous for having a lot of females in it. For some weird and unknown reason, only females can become spirits, which made him wonder why he, a male, was a spirit as well.

But that didn't matter now, for he had arrived in the middle of their gang.

"Hello there, ladies." Shido did a gentlemanly bow as he spoke. He currently donned a butler-like suit, black pants, black shoes, and matching white gloves.

"Who are you?!"

"How did you manage to find this place?!"

Needless to say, the ladies were shocked at the sudden appearance of Shido in the middle of their gathering place.

"Now, now, please do not worry. I am here, of course, with a purpose. As for how I arrived? It is of no matter. What matters is that I am here to offer you an opportunity." Shido lifted his head and stared right into the leader's eyes, ignoring all the other furious gazes on him.

"I see. And what shall that be?" The leader, unlike the other members, quickly recovered from her initial shock and replied.

"Power."

A single word escaped from Shido's mouth before the entire place fell into a deathly silence.

The leader frowned as well and asked, "What power are you talking about? Better quirks? Better authority? More money? And who are you to say that you can provide any of that?"

"Of course, I can prove it. I'm here right now, aren't I? All of you girls here aren't a match for me, even if all of you go against me together." Shido replied proudly, his smile never leaving his face.

The women weren't happy with his declaration, and one even immediately launched an attack against him. A bolt of lightning was aimed at his head, but he simply tilted his head sidewards. He dashed towards the attacker and did a dropkick on her, not caring whether she was male or female.

All this happened within a second. Before anyone could react, the attacker had already lost her consciousness. She fell to the ground with a resounding 'thud'.

"Huh?" Everyone was confused at the actions of both of them. They turned their heads towards the attacker and saw Shido standing on top of her unconscious body.

"So?" Shido asked, "What do you think about my strength?"

"You..." A woman angrily growled as she charged forward to attack as well. Seeing her actions, all the other women also started charging towards him and started engaging as well.

Seeing that none of them, save for the leader, would listen to his warning, Shido shook his head and uttered in disappointment, "It seems that I have to teach you girls something known as 'manners'."

Dodging an incoming spike, he crouched down and did a one hundred and eighty-degree spin sweep kick. Unlike during the mid-year examinations, Shido did not have the need to hold back. Thus, instead of just spraining an ankle as Fumikage did, the five people whose ankles were hit snapped into two.

"Argh!!" Five women screamed in pain as they lost their footing and fell to the floor. However, that did not stop the other women as they continued rushing towards him.

Shido found two women in front of him. One had four arms, while the other had spiky hair. Just as he was about to attack, he discovered that the ground suddenly turned soft. To prevent himself from sinking into the mud, he jumped up and did a side kick and a twist kick simultaneously, hitting both women simultaneously.

Both of their heads clashed into one another, and blood flowed out from their heads. Not wanting to sink into the mud like them, Shido jumped from one head to another, dodging incoming ice needles, vines slashes, and some bullets in the process.

When he landed on firm ground, he immediately realised that there was someone behind him. He did not have enough time to turn his body, so he kicked backward linearly straight to the target's head.

"Argh!" The woman screamed in pain as his kick broke her nose. Now waiting for her to recover, he immediately punched her in the guts, causing her to vomit.

Shido looked at all the women who were surrounding him and sighed.

'It's time to use my quirk.'

Haniel's transformation did more than just change his appearance. The transformed objects or subjects, including himself if he transforms, will be a near-perfect imitation of whatever they were transformed into. However, the memories and personalities of the changed objects or subjects will remain the same.

The reason he took on this guy's looks was not only because of his ordinariness to not stand out in a crowd, but also his quirk.

His quirk was Bone reconstruction. The name itself sounds simple, but the effects were anything but that. His quirk allows him to enlarge, edit, and regrow their bone, although it would hurt a lot.

Manipulating his ribcage, his shirt burst open as twelve pairs of bones protruded from his chest, stabbing everyone close to him.

"What?!" The leader, who had just been sitting since the start of the fight, suddenly stood up and exclaimed in shock.

Of course, Shido aimed his ribcage so that he didn't hit any vital organs. He didn't want them to die. After all, they were valuable 'incubators' for purifying the Qlipha crystals. They didn't know that, of course. They just assumed they were lucky that none of them died, though they were bleeding profusely.

"Who are you?!" The leader finally stepped in and prevented the rest of the women from attacking.

"Finally, someone is listening." Shido dusted off his shirt, which was full of holes now. He adjusted his attire and said, "As I have mentioned earlier, my only purpose is to offer you power."

After seeing Shido's combat prowess and hearing his words together, the leader finally became interested in the so-called 'power' that Shido would be giving.

"What is the price of power?" The leader wasn't stupid. She knew that such extraordinary power would have some sort of cost. After all, nothing in this world was free. "I'm sure that if the power was as great as you described, the cost would be equally high as well."

"Very smart, as expected of the leader." Shido smiled and clapped his hands. The gang was angry at his mocking but held back since they knew they couldn't defeat him. The leader was frowning as well but opted to remain silent and wait for him to continue.

"You see, the power I'm offering is too strong." Shido explained as he took out the Qlipha crystal containing Amdusias, "If your willpower isn't strong enough, you will explode to death."

Hearing his words, all the women sucked in a deep breath and looked towards the orb floating in his hands with maniacal fanaticism and greed.

"So? Who wants to test it out?" Shido asked, knowing that he had successfully gotten their full attention. Of course, he had lied about the fact that having strong willpower would help gain and control the power.

The Qlipha crystals were corrupted with negative energy and emotions. No matter how strong their willpower is, they will definitely turn into monsters one by one until the crystal is completely purified and safe to use.

He looked around at the fifty-ish women around him and asked, "So who's first?"

"Me." Naturally, the leader immediately volunteered herself before anyone else could. The others had a slightly affronted expression but kept them within themselves in fear of the leader.

Shido noticed it and smiled reassuringly, "Don't worry, I'm sure all of you would have a chance since not many people would be able to use it."

"Are you looking down on me?" The leader growled.

"Yes." Shido answered without hesitation.

"Y-You..." The leader wasn't expecting such a direct answer and was at a loss of words.

"Alright, do you have a room? I don't want to scare away the potential candidates after seeing you explode after all."

The leader just humphed angrily before leading them to a private room and entered immediately.

Shido also followed her into the room, but not before informing them that they should choose who would be the next candidate to have the chance of obtaining power.

The women were confused about his statement, but all of them still tried battling for the next spot.

Shido entered the dimly lit room and spotted the leader on the bed. If it was placed in any other context, the mood in the room would be ambiguous. However, all the leader could think of now was the power that she would soon obtain.

"Now, just touch this orb..." Shido went close to her and whispered in her ears. His words right now were just like a devil's temptation. Not able to resist any longer, she went and touched the orb.

As soon as she came into contact with the orb, it was immediately absorbed into her body, and a green yukata appeared on her body, replacing her previous outfit.

"Wow! This power...this energy! I could rule the world with this!" The leader started laughing maniacally as she summoned a pitch-black flute with intricate designs of devils present on the flute.

However, in the middle of her celebration, her laughter suddenly turned into shrieks. Her flute and yukata had already disappeared, returning her appearance back to her normal one. However, her skin started to deform in weird angles, and her face slowly turned into a monster's.

Horns started to protrude from her temples as her torso expanded to about three meters wide.

Gruesome. This was the only word that Shido could use to describe the current scene. He waited for the leader to fully transform into a monster before he made his move. After all, the monster must be fully transformed before the maximum amount of purification could be done.

The leader, no, the monster now had been entirely transformed, and it let out a horrible, high-pitched screech.

"SCREEEEECH!"

[A/N: I don't know what the onomatopoeia is for a screeching sound, so...]

Shido covered his ears as he smiled happily. It seemed that his experiment had gone correctly. He didn't really feel guilty about doing this to them as they were a very villainous gang. They engaged in many different crimes, which include but are not limited to children trafficking, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and rape.

Yes. Rape. They had raped a man before. It might sound enjoyable for some, but it wasn't when the women who were doing the raping weighed more than a hundred kilograms and used him as a breeding machine for days without rest, eventually killing them.

He had no mercy for them and had already decided to make them disappear. However, since he found a better use for them, he hasn't done so and just waited for the right opportunity.

Not wasting any more time, he slashed the monster's head off before it could rampage around the room. To his surprise, the body immediately disappeared into dust, leaving behind the familiar black orb.

He picked up the orb and let it float above his open palm, observing any changes that might have occurred to the orb.

Once he spotted no difference, he sighed before letting the next 'chosen one' in. Despite knowing about the risk, not a single woman backed off.

Like how the saying goes in China, people were willing to die for wealth, just as birds are willing to die for food. Or, in this case, how people are willing to die for the chance to be more powerful.

"Are you sure about your decision?" Shido confirmed with the woman as he locked the door.

The woman looked around the room in slight fear. She noticed that only one person was present in the room, which initially had two. Needless to say, the fate of her previous leader was known to everyone.

However, she still didn't want to give up on getting power and replied with a firm determination, "Yes."

"Very well." Shido leaned in and repeated the same words, luring her to take the floating crystal willingly.

Once again, the entire process started before Shido killed the monster.

Each person took about five minutes to end their turn, so before daybreak, Shido managed to annihilate the entire gang while accomplishing his goal. Truly hitting two birds with one stone.

Honestly he was surprised at the greed of humans. Despite knowing that they would die for power, they still stayed. He had honestly thought that some, if not most, of the women would try to escape from this fate. Needless to say, he would have forced them to use the crystal one way or another, but since everybody stayed...he didn't need to do much.

After clearing the entire scene, he took out the floating orb, which now had a light tinge of green mixed within the endless black.

"It seems that the purifying of the crystal would take some time." Shido frowned a little before relaxing. Time was something he never lacked.

Teleporting home, he quickly washed up without waking anybody and snuggled into his bed before closing his eyes.

Unknown to him, Eri opened her eyes wide open the moment he entered the bed. Unmistakably, she knew that Shido was keeping a secret from her. She did not know what it was but trusted that he would eventually tell her one day.

All she needed to do, for now, was to wait for her beloved.

She sighed before closing her eyes, snuggling deep within Shido's warm embrace.

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A/N: Two 3k words chapters in one day?! I'm amazed at myself!

If you want to support me or/and want 14+ chapters in advance, link:

https://www.patréon.com/spirits_everywhere