“Ugh…”
Cassian hesitated.
Just two ounces of blood from a young girl in exchange for a transcendent arcana?
Even a fool wouldn’t fall for that.
As he paused for a breath, the door creaked open.
A graceful woman with delicate features stepped into the room, holding a steaming bowl of greenish soup.
It was Lily Sinclair-the same maid who had poisoned him just yesterday.
Her steps were soft, but they couldn’t slip past Cassian’s sharpened senses.
The venom in his body had already been purged by the skeletal old man within, and his cultivation had recovered to the fourth rank of the spiritblade realm.
He remained still, lying in bed, watching.
He wanted to see just how far this treacherous woman would go.
“Still breathing?”
Lily muttered as she stood beside the bed, her eyes flashing coldly when she noticed the faint rise and fall of Cassian’s chest.
But she didn’t panic; she’d prepared for this.
Fearing he hadn’t died the first time, she brought a fresh dose of poison just to make sure.
Truth was, Lily hadn’t slept a wink last night.
Though Cassian was helpless after being drugged, she didn’t dare finish him off outright.
Bryce’s orders were clear-no visible wounds.
A single mark could prompt the family lord to investigate.
The poison Bryce had handed her was no ordinary toxin.
It would kill a man without leaving any trace-death would look as natural as sleep.
“This bowl will send you off for good.”
Murderous intent flashed in her eyes as she reached forward, fingers aiming for Cassian’s lips.
Every second he stayed alive was a torment for her.
But Cassian had reached his limit.
The rage buried deep within burst forth.
His eyes snapped open.
With no warning, he slammed his foot into Lily’s chest.
“Bang!”
The kick, backed by his full strength at the fourth rank of the spiritblade realm, smashed her organs to dust.
The force sent her crashing five meters across the room.
“You…”
Blood gushed from Lily’s mouth and nose.
Her eyes widened in disbelief, trying to form words…
but breath failed her.
She died on the spot.
“Filthy wench, I ought to kill you a hundred more times!”
Cassian’s face was grim, not a shred of pity in his eyes.
The old Cassian was gone.
He now lived in a world where the strong ruled.
Here, strength gave power, power gave freedom.
And this?
This was a maid who tried to murder her master.
Though Lily was dead, his fury hadn’t eased.
The true hand behind the curtain was his cousin-Bryce.
This feud couldn’t be left to rot.
“Hm?
Didn’t that freak want young girl’s blood?”
Cassian’s eyes narrowed.
He was ready to move against Bryce, but then glanced at Lily’s corpse…
and remembered the deal with the Bloodthirst Emperor.
Without delay, he grabbed a teapot from the table and got to work on her lifeless body.
Even Cassian himself felt sick doing it-cutting someone open and draining blood wasn’t exactly something normal people enjoyed.
Killing was easy, but this?
This felt twisted.
Like he’d crossed a damn line.
Still, for the chance at a so-called transcendent arcana, he forced himself to bear it.
If it really worked…
taking down Bryce would be way easier.
“This can’t be less than a pound in here…”
He weighed the teapot in his hand for a moment, then shoved his nausea aside and dove into his soulsea-right to the gate of that towering golden palace.
What caught him by surprise was that though he’d entered with just his consciousness, the teapot of blood had come with him.
Looked like he could drag things in here from the outside with pure thought alone.
Not bad.
“Boss, you work fast, huh?
Already got the blood, damn!”
The Bloodthirst Emperor, locked inside the palace, couldn’t see the outside world, but he could sense everything around this place.
That teapot in Cassian’s hands had him all hyped up, his voice echoing with an odd mix of excitement and sarcasm.
Cassian stopped in front of the golden keyhole and hesitated.
What if opening the doors set all the monsters inside loose?
That thought alone made him sweat.
Still…
he had to see what was inside.
After a pause, he took the gamble and pushed his golden fingertip into the hole.
RUMBLE!
The towering golden gates-easily a thousand feet high-slowly creaked open.
As the darkness inside lifted, daylight spilled across a hall so massive it seemed to stretch into forever.
Golden.
Everything was gold.
Floor, ceiling, walls-like the palace had been carved from a single hulking block and then hollowed out.
The only breaks in the golden surfaces were the rows of doors lining the corridor, one on each side.
Cassian took a deep breath.
The sheer grandeur of it all…
If he’d owned a place like this back on Earth, hell, he wouldn’t need to do anything else in life.
He could probably buy the whole damn planet with just one hall.
Thankfully, the inner structure wasn’t what he’d feared.
Just like the Bloodthirst Emperor said, the palace was more a prison than anything else.
Each side of the long corridor had cells-each one isolated and sealed.
“What the hell is that thing?”
As soon as he stepped into the place, he spotted a black, shriveled tree stump locked inside the first cell on his left.
Thing was massive, taking up all the space in its enclosure, roughly fifty square meters…
And somehow, even that was enough to be held in the Forbidden Prison?
“Keep your voice down, boss!
Don’t wake that thing.
I’m here too, you know.”
Cassian jerked around at the voice behind him-and his hair stood on end.
There, in the rightmost cell, was a blood-red skeleton waving lazily at him-with long green hair hanging down like moss.
Creepy as hell and downright unnatural.
This twisted image was the Bloodthirst Emperor’s true form.
“What the hell…
this is you?” Cassian recoiled, thrown off.
This wasn’t the kind of figure he’d imagined for someone called the Bloodthirst Emperor.
The Emperor sighed, voice low.
“Been locked here for eighty billion years.
All my blood’s dried up.
You’re looking at peak condition, actually-considering.”
Peak condition, my ass.
Cassian stared, expression half-stunned.
Bones like twigs, green hair like rot…
The guy looked more dead than dead.