Chapter 107: Investing in Evelyne
Cain immediately froze.
Ron stared at the empty space where the dark gray energy had vanished, then slowly turned toward him.
"Did you just throw that shit?"
Cain looked at his claws and blinked his eyes.
"I think so."
He raised his arm and swung again.
True Ruin gathered along the claws before following the motion of his hand. Another unstable crescent formed in front of him, separating from the black claws and flying outward.
This time, it remained intact slightly longer.
Tsssh!
The crescent struck the road almost two meters away and carved a shallow mark into the pavement before scattering into wisps of dark gray energy.
Cain’s eyes narrowed.
He immediately understood what was happening.
Previously, the Ruin energy had always remained connected to his body or weapon.
Now that it had evolved into True Ruin and his control had improved, the energy was somehow capable of maintaining its structure outside his body for a short period of time.
The problem was that Cain had almost no control over it once it separated from him.
He turned toward a nearby building and slashed.
A dark crescent shot from his claws, but instead of maintaining its shape, the energy twisted halfway through the air before crashing into the wall.
Crack!
Several bricks broke loose and fell onto the sidewalk.
Cain immediately tried again, swinging his hand one more time.
This time, the next slash dispersed almost the moment it left his claws.
He frowned and reduced the amount of True Ruin before swinging once more.
This attempt traveled farther, but the crescent veered away from the section of wall Cain had been aiming at and disappeared farther down the street.
Ron watched silently as Cain continued experimenting.
Another slash struck the pavement. The next one flew toward an abandoned vehicle and left a long cut across its door before collapsing.
Cain even spent several minutes simply swinging through empty air, trying to understand the exact moment when the True Ruin separated from his claws.
The results remained inconsistent because sometimes the energy traveled several meters, while other times, it collapsed the moment it left his arm.
Still, one thing had become clear.
The ability clearly existed.
It was just that Cain simply did not know how to use it properly yet.
After another unstable slash curved sideways and destroyed what remained of a shop sign, Cain finally lowered his arm.
"Forget it."
Ron raised an eyebrow.
"That’s it?"
"For now it is, I guess."
Cain released the Skill.
The black scales covering his right arm gradually disappeared beneath his skin.
His curved claws shortened back into ordinary fingernails, while the slightly enlarged muscles around his forearm returned to normal.
Cain flexed his right hand several times.
There was no pain at all, maybe only a slight amount of Mana had been consumed during the manifestation itself.
Most of what he had spent came from repeatedly forcing True Ruin away from his body during his experiments.
He looked toward the damaged walls surrounding them.
The results were already enough.
Cain now knew that the transformation greatly strengthened whichever part of his body he manifested.
He also knew that True Ruin energy could somehow be released from his body.
He only needed time to figure out the latter.
Cain turned toward Ron.
"Let’s go."
Ron looked at the damaged building before glancing at the cuts left across the road.
"You said you wanted to test it for a bit."
"That was a bit."
"You nearly demolished half the street."
"It was already damaged." Cain shrugged.
Ron opened his mouth, but after a moment, he apparently decided that arguing was not worth the effort.
"Whatever."
He rolled his eyes and stepped aside, gesturing for Cain to go first as though he were being the gentleman between them.
Cain chuckled and started moving again.
Ron followed beside him, and the two quickly resumed their journey toward the main group.
Cain’s mood remained exceptionally good.
He had only reached the 1st Echelon, yet his improvement had already gone far beyond simply doubling his stats.
A few minutes later, Cain and Ron finally reached the intersection where the others had fought the Zombie King’s horde.
The battle was already over.
Bodies covered large sections of the road, with the corpses of several 1st Echelon zombies scattered among countless weaker infected.
The battlefield itself had suffered badly.
Large cracks ran across the pavement, and several abandoned vehicles had been crushed or overturned during the fighting. Arrows remained embedded throughout the area, with many still sticking out from zombie corpses.
The weaker members of the group were currently cleaning up the battlefield.
Several people dragged zombie corpses away from the center of the road while the stronger fighters searched through the bodies for Cores and dropped items.
Glowing Scrolls and Orbs occasionally appeared between the corpses before being collected and placed together.
Their harvest from this battle was considerable.
Although most of the drops were not particularly high-ranked, the sheer number of zombies they had killed made up for the difference.
More importantly, everyone who participated had gained a large amount of combat experience.
A few of the stronger people who had still been Unranked before the battle had even completed their Advancement Missions.
Cain noticed Cole among them almost immediately.
He stood near Nathan with a newly formed Mana Core inside his body, his aura already carrying the distinct difference of a 1st Echelon Awakener.
Cain raised an eyebrow.
’Even that bastard advanced.’
He still remembered meeting Cole at the cafeteria when the idiot decided it would be funny to shoot a training arrow toward an unfamiliar group.
Cain had beaten enough sense into him afterward.
At least the lesson seemed to have worked.
Cole had become much more serious since then and had fought alongside Nathan while behaving well.
The others soon noticed Cain and Ron approaching.
Several people immediately stopped what they were doing.
"There he is!"
"Cain!"
"The Zombie King is really dead!"
Even though everyone had already seen the Universal Announcement, seeing Cain return alive removed whatever remaining uncertainty they possessed.
Jack approached while wiping dried blood from his hands.
"You look surprisingly fine for someone who fought that thing alone."
Cain glanced down at himself.
His clothing was ruined in several places and covered in dried blood, but most of the injuries beneath had already disappeared.
"I know, right?" Cain smiled. "What matters is that my body’s fine now."
Ron immediately snorted from beside him.
"Fine? This bastard was getting smashed around like a fucking ball earlier."
Cain rolled his eyes and ignored him.
Nathan walked over shortly afterward.
"You really killed it?"
"You saw the announcement, right?"
"I did." Nathan chuckled. "But it still sounds ridiculous."
He added, "I expected you to come back looking half-dead after killing that monster, but apparently not."
Cain merely shrugged, though the smug expression on his face made his feelings obvious.
His attention then moved across the rest of the group.
Elara was nearby helping organize the loot. She looked over the moment their gazes met, and the relief on her face was obvious.
Evelyne stood farther back beside Doctor Owen.
Cain’s attention stopped on her, he had thought of giving his loot to Evelyne, Elara, and Sonya and obtained Investment Rewards while he was at it, but his first choice was Evelyne since he had helped him the most, especially with her healing skill before.