Eldrin shivered at the sight of blood all around him. When the slaughter trial started he had a feeling that this time things were going to be different but not in his wildest dreams did he think that it would end up .
That's what this was. The monster he partnered with went wild the moment the trial started and only stopped when the golden glow surrounded them and forcefully whisked them away, signaling the end of the trial.
Eldrin gazed at the maniacal look on Liam's face with fear and he once again shuddered. This same person had been logical and tolerant up until now but all of a sudden he had completely let loose.
Liam did not hold back at all. In the last slaughter trial, the vampires had forced him to constantly keep up his dao field and in this slaughter trial he did exactly just that.
After absorbing the weird mist, the last bits of issues he had with his dao field were naturally resolved and he was now able to form a complete one, a strong and stable one. He was confident that beings even on the same level as him would have difficulty in dealing with it.
He had tested this theory in the slaughter trial and the results were off the charts. He was able to cut down whoever stood in his path easily. This time it was not the vampires who targeted him but the other way around.
His only misgiving was that the trial had ended too soon. This one seemed to have a straightforward cut-off and after he killed about twenty vampires in the span of a couple of minutes they were already out of the trial.
On the plus side, he had gathered some more souls. In total, he had three new vampire minions added to his soul army. Not that it did him any good. The vampire souls were simply too weak. Perhaps it was because of the specific technique they followed but their souls were extremely feeble. Apparently, burning their life force repeatedly and replenishing it could have this effect on their souls, making them brittle and easier to shatter.
But Liam was not convinced. Their souls were far too weak for a mere side effect. It was impossible for them to have been so strong when they were alive with souls . And if they are not strong then what was the point of a mind-controlled army?
There was also the other issue that he noticed. These vampires had very bad memories. When Liam usually processed a soul, forging it into his personal minion he had complete control of the soul in every sense. This meant that he had access to all of the memories and experiences of the dead soul.
Liam was counting on this to extract some more information about the myriad realms, information that he could not get from the system shop. However, that proved to be a dead end because the souls of these vampires had big gaping holes with respect to their memory.
Large chunks of their memories were missing, and it was not on just one of them. All of them had the same issue. It was as if someone had forcibly tried to tamper with their memories or perhaps there was some mind-control technique that automatically tried to erase their memories when they died. This could also explain the unusually weak souls.
Considering the ancient history of these vampires and that they had an established hierarchy probably dating back to a time so old that perhaps even the system hadn't popped out yet, Liam felt it was very possible that they had put so many precautions in place.
But it also told him something else. Not everyone was able to meddle with souls. The work done by these guys was a patch-up job at most. He was still able to get many nuggets of information from the souls and his fully forged minions. If only he had his previous soul strength he was confident he would have been able to get even more. However, there was no point in thinking about that now. Liam closed his eyes gathering his thoughts from the various souls he had rummaged through and quickly summarized some things. He had been a bit short sighted but thanks to these vampires he was able to correct it. It turns out that there were a few other things that he had to keep on lookout for apart from healing his soul. It was his race evolution and his bloodline evolution.
Liam already knew about these things but he did not prioritize them because he needed to start from scratch searching for these things and reading about them and figuring out what was best for him. Healing his soul would be the quickest way to become stronger.
However, the vampires had a different viewpoint. Apparently, they gave more importance to bloodline evolution. In fact, many did not even step into the transcendent rank without taking care of their bloodline.
Liam was only able to drag this information out of the souls because this had been on the mind of almost every single soul he had processed. Perhaps this had been their personal big goal in tagging along with their 'Master' to the Spire.
Also, there was only so much he could learn from these grunts. He needed to get an elite vampire soon, someone who would definitely know more things and perhaps wouldn't be subjected to the same kind of soul erasing tactics.
It was only a matter of time before they stepped into another slaughter trial so Liam did not sweat it. Instead, he started paying close attention to the current floor they were on.
Based on how things had gone so far, this floor should have been a reward floor but it certainly did not look like it. Liam could already hear the roar of a beast in the distance. Something powerful.
And so the grind yet again starts.