Leaving Elder Shaloria’s grand yet oppressive tent, Andura took a deep breath of the relatively “fresh” air in the camp, as if exhaling all the panic and subservience from moments ago.
He moved his newly regrown left arm, which still felt slightly strange.
A sinister glint flashed in his eyes as he turned and walked toward an area on the west side of the camp, enclosed by thick wooden stakes and enchanted chains.
This area was used to pen some of the “living supplies” the Vampire Clan had brought on this expedition—a type of low-tier magical beast known as “Engolas.”
Looking at the dozens of Engolas huddled together inside the fence, blankly chewing on hay, Andura curled his lip.
“Fifty Engolas…
Elder Shaloria is being truly ‘generous’ this time,” he muttered to himself, his tone carrying a faint, barely detectable hint of heartache.
Although individual Engolas weren’t worth much, fifty of them were enough to sustain a small team for several days or be refined into a significant amount of pure life energy.
To just give them away for free to that damned Demon Clan native was a complete waste.
But thinking of the Elder’s plan and the secrets regarding the replication of divine artifacts that might be hidden on Lucifer, this small “investment” seemed necessary again.
You can’t catch a wolf without baiting the trap.
He no longer hesitated.
With a flip of his right hand, a strange bead appeared in his palm, about the size of a longan, completely pitch-black, smooth-surfaced, and without any markings.
He made a casual sweeping motion toward the pen.
Invisible ripples of mana spread out, precisely locking onto fifty of the relatively robust Engolas.
Next, he gently tossed the black bead into the air above those fifty Engolas.
The bead suspended in mid-air, rotating slightly.
In the next moment, a faint but strangely attractive spectral light emanated from within the bead, enveloping the livestock below.
“Moo—!”
The Engolas enveloped in the spectral light let out panicked, short cries, but their struggles were meaningless.
Their forms rapidly became blurred and transparent within the light, as if turning into illusory shadows.
Then, like streams of water pulled by an invisible hand, they were sucked one after another into that tiny black bead!
Once the absorption was complete, the black bead dropped gently back into Andura’s palm.
It felt slightly cool to the touch, and its weight didn’t seem to have changed at all.
He weighed it in his hand with satisfaction and gripped the bead tightly.
“With this’sincerity’ and the subsequent ‘invitation’…
the fish is about to bite.” A cold smile appeared on Andura’s face as he turned and strode toward the grey tent at the edge of the camp.
Inside the crude tent, Lucifer sat cross-legged on a cold stone bed, his eyes tightly shut, his pitch-black hair moving without any wind.
After this period of cultivation, Lucifer’s mana had increased by about a hundred.
Lucifer slowly opened his eyes, his pitch-black pupils seeming to absorb all the light in the dim tent.
He looked at Andura as he walked in, a calm smile naturally appearing on his face, as if he were truly just waiting for the transaction to be completed.
“You’re back?”
No urgency could be heard in his voice, as if he had long anticipated the result, or perhaps didn’t care at all. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
Seeing Lucifer’s composed manner, Andura sneered even harder in his heart.
What a performance!
Let’s see if you can still smile once you fall into Elder Shaloria’s hands later!
But on his face, he forced a slightly flattering smile that carried a hint of being “in a difficult position.”
“Lord Lucifer, the thirty intact biological corpses with a Combat Class of five thousand that you requested are large in number and high in quality.
It is truly difficult to gather them all at once.
We are urgently mobilizing them from more distant hunting grounds, but it will take some time…”
He rubbed his hands together, explaining with a sincere tone, repeating the script Shaloria had given him.
“Oh?
It takes time?” Lucifer’s eyebrows arched slightly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
“However, to show our sincerity and as compensation for delaying your time,” Andura quickly added, taking out the black bead from his robe and offering it with both hands, “I have first brought fifty ‘Engolas’ with a Combat Class of around five hundred.”
Lucifer’s eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the seemingly ordinary black bead in Andura’s hand.
He reached out and took the bead.
The bead felt warm in his hand.
He could faintly sense a small, stable space inside, as well as fifty weak but definitely present life signatures within it.
Their Combat Classes generally fluctuated between four hundred and six hundred, consistent with what Andura had said.
He actually brought them?
Lucifer felt a bit surprised in his heart.
He had originally thought Andura would return empty-handed or find some excuse to delay, but he hadn’t expected the other party to actually produce “physical goods,” even if the Combat Class was far below his requirements.
Then, he understood.
Andura didn’t know he possessed the mana of [Eternal Absorption]!
In the eyes of these vampires, fifty livestock with a Combat Class of five hundred might be decent “food” or “materials,” but they certainly couldn’t be rapidly converted into Lucifer’s own strength.
They were using these “low-value” things as bait and pacification, attempting to lower his guard to pave the way for their subsequent plans.
A happy accident…
they’ve actually sent me a nice little “appetizer.”
Lucifer thought to himself, but showed nothing on his face.
He simply toyed with the black bead in his hand for a moment, as if evaluating its worth.
“I’ll take the goods.” Lucifer gripped the bead in his palm, his pitch-black eyes looking at Andura, his tone flat.
“Let’s go.”
Andura felt a surge of joy and quickly stepped aside to lead the way: “Please follow me, my lord.”
Andura followed closely behind.
Stepping out of the crude tent, the eternally dim and oppressive sky of the Demon Realm loomed overhead once again.
The vampire warriors patrolling the camp seemed to have received orders; they didn’t approach, only casting wary or curious glances from a distance.
Lucifer stood on the open ground outside the tent but didn’t immediately follow Andura deeper into the camp.
He stopped, looked up at the dark red sky, and then scanned the ornate vampire tents around him.
Then, under Andura’s puzzled gaze, he made an unexpected move.
He gently tossed the black bead in his hand into the air at an upward angle.
The bead traced a low arc.
When it reached a height of about five or six meters from the ground, Lucifer pointed his fingers like a sword and tapped toward the bead from a distance!
A condensed beam of pitch-black mana accurately struck the bead.
“Pop—”
A soft sound, like a bubble bursting.
Spectral light flashed rapidly on the surface of the black bead.
Then, the fifty Engolas that had been absorbed were released in a reverse process at an even faster speed!
Grey-brown figures seemed to emerge from thin air.
Accompanied by panicked “mooing” sounds, the fifty sturdy Engolas fell like dumplings from the rapidly expanding spectral exit in mid-air, crashing onto the open ground in the center of the camp with a series of thuds and kicks, stirring up a cloud of dust.
Dizzy and disoriented, they huddled together and let out chaotic shrieks, instantly turning the orderly vampire camp into a scene of noisy confusion.
The nearby patrolling vampire warriors were stunned by this sudden turn of events.
They gripped their weapons, looking at the scurrying livestock in shock and suspicion, and then at the perpetrator, Lucifer.
Andura was even more dumbfounded, completely failing to understand why Lucifer would do such a thing.
Releasing the “compensation” that had just been put into a spatial tool right on the spot?
What does this mean?
Showing off?
Or…
is there another purpose?
Lucifer remained indifferent to the commotion and the gazes around him.
His pitch-black eyes calmly swept over the fifty Engolas on the ground, which were emitting faint ripples of life and mana.
A cold arc, one that only he understood, curled almost imperceptibly at the corner of his mouth.
The feast has begun.