Chapter 7: Revealing His True Colors!

"He must be talented to survive for this long." Atreus pondered as he looked at the kid wolfing down a piece of roasted meat in front of him.

"I had initially thought of killing him the moment he appeared."

But he ultimately decided against it because of several reasons. Firstly, Leo was an Earth Tier Talent and would definitely be nurtured to an Inner Circle or even Core Circle Elder by the Sect if possible.

So, there must be an observer protecting him from afar in this ceremony. Secondly, he was also quite sure that the number of points with everyone at this point of time was quite low.

"Thank You! Boss, you are a life-saver!" Leo spoke as he ate happily.

Atreus inwardly cringed at the comment but maintained a smile on his face, "So, have you encountered anyone else in this Forest?'

He inquired as he was quite curious.

Leo dismissively nodded, "No, you are the first one that I encountered. That aside, you look in a good shape! Didn't you have trouble figuring out how your Spirit works?"

Well, the difference was quite stark whilst Leo looked bruised and battered with his Uniform teared in several places, Atreus on the other hand looked in pristine condition.

"He! He! I was quite lucky." Atreus chuckled and replied nonchalantly.

Leo dropped his suspicions and started to inquire about what Atreus was going to do after this.

Atreus simply deflected the question and said he wasn't sure about what he should do and so was planning to stay here for the time being.

Leo seemingly approved of that tactic. After all they had already fought and learned how to use their abilities so waiting for the Ceremony to end was a good strategy.

"But I think I will leave. As dangerous as it is I need to get those merit points." Leo said with a determined gaze.

Atreus snickered inwardly, "Quite naïve and inefficient."

It wasn't that he wasn't interested in collecting points but hunting beasts was going to be the most inefficient way of collecting them.

So, what was Atreus waiting for exactly?

For other to collect points for him of course!

"I have already figured out how this Ceremony Works." Atreus thought. It was quite clear that they hadn't been given any indication of when the Ceremony would end, but now he realized it would end when enough participants had been killed.

Back in the Assembly over 20 Disciples had been recruited but as he came here and looked around, he saw that over 100 new Disciples were present. So, when people started to kill each other for points only then would the true "Blood Letting Ceremony" begun and it would end when the Sect reached the number of Summoners they wanted to raise this Year.

"Thinking like this. It is quite brilliant huh." Atreus was a little impressed.

"So, I must leave for now." Leo had finally finished his speech about why he couldn't accompany Atreus. The latter had simply ignored it though.

Leo got up and started to leave as Atreus waived him goodbye.

Shake! Shake!

Out of nowhere a magical beast jumped at Leo, it looked like a Giant Salamander with red coloured scales. Red Scaled Lizard, lower Rank 1.

Leo quickly called his spirit as Atreus watched on with interest, he had no intention of helping Leo out.

The Flame Toad appeared, its throat bulged and glowed red.

Spooch!

It spat out a blazing red orb at the Lizard.

Bang! The Lizard was forced to stop from the impact.

The orb impacted the Lizard on the side as its scales started to melt. A large wound appeared on its side with large amounts of blood escaping its body, it writhed in pain as its insides melted.

Puchi!

The fiery glow stopped spreading and the Lizard slowly died.

"That was scary." Leo thought with a downcast face and slowly started to consider that he should probably just chill like Atreus. So he turned around to look for him-

"Where the hell is he?"

Atreus had already left after witnessing Leo attack with his Spirit. He wanted to go to a Small Hill that he had seen earlier, from there he would have a better vantage point.

"Flame Toad, I know this Spirit." In fact, he knew it far too well, because he used it till Rank 5 in his past life. He had raised the Spirit to a "Eminent Volcano Toad" and it was a really powerful attacker.

"Hmmm... the Sect seems to have quite a bit of Flaming Toads, maybe I can try and sell them this recipe when I become more powerful in the future." Atreus wouldn't reveal any recipe that he had to anyone for now because only when he became a lot more powerful would it bring him any benefits.

Soon he came across a large mountain that was adorned with lush orange grass. It was quite barren and only had few magical rocks and plants scattered on it. Atreus quickly climbed to the top of the mountain and sat down in a meditative state.

Somewhere above in the sky.

Leonard floated in the air alongside Elder K. They were looking out for Atreus, so that he didn't meet any mishap in the ceremony.

Leonard was a little confused, "Is he really lazy or something? Apart from his initial performance he hasn't really done anything, doesn't he want to hunt beasts for points."

K grinned at Leonard, "Ho! Don't tell me you don't realize it yet, look at how he has positioned himself."

Leonard was a little stunned, "You mean…!"

K nodded. "He has already realized the nature of the Ceremony and his own uniqueness. Even earlier during my Lecture there were a lot of gazes at him because of his Core Disciple Status.

Thus, eventually a lot of people will come seeking him thinking that he has amassed a lot of points already."

Leonard then also started to grin and looked down on the mountain waiting for the show to start.

Soon enough two days passed like this.

During this time Atreus would only meditate on the Mountain and eventually go out for hunting magic beasts for gathering food. But soon the Sun went down and the winds began to move.

"Its already the time." Atreus thought as he saw some figures in the distance approaching him. They were 2 boys, Outer Disciples.

The looked a little haggard but had a dark glint in their eyes.

"To directly attack me though, quite stupid isn't it."

Atreus snickered.

The two boys called out their Blood Dolls and proceeded to charge at Atreus, who responded in kind by bringing out his Crazed Devilman.

Piercing Claws!

His spirit lashed out a large energy claw at the Blood Dolls, the two boys also attacked, they tried to aim at Atreus wanting to directly draw blood from him.

But Atreus had already jumped to one side and managed to avoid the curse.

Bang! Bang!

Both of the Blood Dolls received heavy damage from the Crazed Devilman's attack. They broke apart a little as their Summoners were heavily injured.

But Atreus didn't give them any chance to recover and send another Claw Attack flying at them!

Boom!

Their Spirits broke apart and they died. This wasn't the end of the battle though. Atreus looked in the distance and sensed that a lot of figures were closing in on him.

"So, they already formed an agreement huh"

Indeed. The disciples already knew he was on this mountain and decided to form a temporary alliance to hunt him down, just now they had sent two of the disciples earlier to try and scout out Atreus.

In the distance a tall girl blonde haired girl stood steady as she commanded the 5 other disciples behind her.

"Bring the beasts corpses with us."

They nodded and quickly moved, two boys soon came carrying the corpses of some Crimson Wolves. They already had realized that the Blood Doll had one glaring weakness, it couldn't attack moving targets to draw their blood out.

So they decided to bring their own corpses out to use them for attacking. A boy called out his Blood Doll and soon blood began to flow from the corpses.

Like this they quickly moved on to the position of Atreus as blood seeped into the ground.

Atreus on the other hand felt his blood boiling as his killing intent started to peak. He had already seen that this wasn't the only group in the Mountain, he could see more of them approaching in the distance.

"Ah! Well, it's your funeral then!" He laughed as he thought of one word.

"Guillotine Assault."

He had already checked the power of this move. It could boost the power of his Spirit by two stages roughly making it so that he could temporarily fight even high-ranking Tier 1 Beasts.

The Crazed Devilman bulged as it pulled out the chained machete out of its back.

The first group had already reached him.

"Blood Wave!"

All of them attacked together as massive blood waves attacked Atreus.

The Devilman moved and-

Screech!

Its chains wailed and the machete cut through the blood waves!

Booom!

The Blood Waves collapsed as the Machete flew back into the hands of the Devilman.

Clasp! The Devilman rotated the Machete again as it moved out like a snake hunting its prey.

The machete was extending directly towards the Summoners!

They tried to use their Spirits to block it.... but it was too fast!

Suii! Puchi!

It passed through their necks directly decapitating them!

More blood seeped into the ground as the Blood Dolls floated stationary in the air. They had lost their Summoners.....

But even with these deaths there wasn't a moment of respite.

Other Disciples quickly started to move towards Atreus. They thought with so much blood scattered around they could use their Spirits more easily. Therefore they bravely moved forward wanting to hunt Atreus to get all of his 'points'.

On the other hand the Devilman simply stood their swinging the blood-stained machete in circles above its head. Atreus simply put his foot on the corpse of a disciple and waited as formless killing intent seeped into the air forming a zone of death around him.

His hair flowed with the wind, his gaze deep like that of the abyss.

Looking at the scene below them K and Leonard only had one thought, "New born calves don't fear the Tiger on the Mountain!"