As Alex called upon the infant human-shaped Blood Origin inside of his Spiritual Sea, the first thing he felt was his heartbeat.
Badum-dum! Badum! Badum-badum! Badum-dum!
His heart started beating in a strange rhythm, one that almost seemed to put him in a lull. The strange rhythm pushed and pulled blood in his heart and throughout his body, at the same time activating the Blood Aura it carried.
Then came the change.
Mental pain struck Alex, for reasons beyond his understanding. A sudden strain grabbed hold of his mind, amplified by the fact that he had a seal around it at the moment.
Pain though it was, Alex could feel it having some positive effects as well.
The pain seemed to help him focus, as if he had been close to sleeping this entire time and had finally managed to wake up.
Badum-dum! Badum! Badum-badum! Badum-dum!
As his heartbeat continued, energy pulsed throughout his body, and more changes followed.
His body convulsed, power spreading to every corner in pulses. Part of his figure changed. His fingers elongated slightly, and his figure grew taller and lankier.
Alex felt some itch on his scalp as well as his shoulder blades and his lower back, but nothing else happened. His skin, however, turned fully red as if he was made of blood itself.
Internally, Alex could tell that his strength had improved by a degree that he couldn’t even fathom right away.
‘This is similar to Beast Origins,’ he thought. ‘My physical body is changing to something else.’
And he knew the thing it was named.
A Devil.
This was the effect of his Blood Origin, a form written in the Blood God’s Manual as the Blood Devil.
“What the hell is that?” Jianyu shouted in utter confusion.
“What is that horrifying redness around his skin?” the young man observed.
Alex’s figure drooped a little, his fingers extending outward, as if preparing to attack.
Jianyu didn’t let him. His hand flashed instantly, his whip extending outward to strike Alex.
Alex’s left hand flashed in a crimson blur, immediately grabbing the edge of the whip. Pain rang through his body from the whip’s strength, but that only seemed to awaken him even more.
A horrifying grin came across Alex’s face as he tugged on the whip. Jianyu reacted at the same time, pulling on his whip. The two were at a standstill.
The young man reacted at the same time, charging forward with a lunge.
Alex dashed forward at the same time, his left arm dragging the whip. He was faster than the young man, who barely reacted in time. He reached out with the whip to wrap it around his hand, but the man reacted instantly the moment he moved.
Alex’s crimson brows narrowed and he let go of the whip.
He reached his palm out, as if to smack the young man’s face, but internally he wanted to grab his arm. He fully set his Intent as wanting to grab his arm.
Before Alex could even switch his attack, the young man pulled his arm back, twisting his body to get away from Alex.
Alex couldn’t help but smile. “So you really can read Intent. No worries, just because you can read them doesn’t mean you can do anything.”
The whip shot at him from the side, but Alex did not need to worry about it. Before the whip touched him, his entire body disappeared, teleporting behind the young man.
He attacked with his fingers straight, going for a jab. The young man turned around, trying to attack, but Alex was far too fast. Even though he may have read his Intent, at this close a range and with this level of speed, there was simply nothing the young man could do.
Alex’s hand gouged a chunk of the young man’s chest before he could move away. The young man gasped in pain as breath left his body. His eyes wavered and he looked at Alex’s devil form, unable to understand just how he had suddenly become so much stronger.
Alex looked at the young man’s wound, blood spilling onto the ground. He couldn’t love anything more.
As his heart beat with that strange rhythm and energy pulsed through his body each time blood traveled through the uncountable blood vessels, something strange happened.
Blood Aura flew out of the spilled blood, flying back into Alex, empowering his current Devil form. It didn’t add to his Blood Aura as this wasn’t cultivation. But it did replenish anything that had been spent.
Alex’s Blood Devil form lasted as long as he had Blood Aura. So if he could spill enough blood of his enemies, he could theoretically continue to fight forever.
Despite his pain, the young man readied to fight. When the man in red charged for him, the young man was ready to protect himself as well. But as he began to move, his steps wavered. His movements had gotten just a bit clumsy, his thoughts just a bit hazy.
He stepped back, realizing something.
“You… you poisoned me!” he shouted, his eyes wide. “You… you…”
Alex moved before the young man could finish speaking. The young man’s reflexes were still fast despite his state, so he retaliated with a strike.
But Alex cared not for the young man’s strength at the moment. He simply took the stab into his chest, while his own fingers dug deep into the young man’s chest as well, stabbing into his heart.
The young man’s body jerked as he coughed up blood. Blood sprayed out of his chest when Alex pulled his hands back, and the energy from the blood poured back into Alex.
The young man’s body went limp, falling to the ground as he died.
With the young man dead, Alex turned toward the remaining Extolite. He grabbed onto the handle of the sword stuck in his chest and pulled it out, not a single drop coming out along with it.
The wound healed not a second after the sword left his body.
“Finally,” Alex said in a hoarse voice, lifting the sword to see it properly. “My sword.”