Chapter 115: Corruption

Lucius and his companions left the hospital while thinking of all that had happened in the past hour. To them, it was all shocking and they had not seen anything like that before. Keith's condition was peculiar and it was evident that it could not be suppressed for long.

Lucius though, was thinking of the information Nexus had just given him when he used it on Keith.

Gift Name: Whip Kick

Description: The user can kick forcefully that can create winds that can attack like whips. The more force that is used, the more powerful the attack will be.

Rank: Rare

Type: Emission/ Physical 

Evolution: Possible

This was the information that Lucius had directly gotten at the start from Keith. But then additional information appeared that intrigued him greatly.

Hell Energy Corruption: Minor 

Info: The person will have increased physical strength that can be increased further with the use of hell energy.

Corruption level: Minor

Corrupted Gift: Locked

(Corrupted Gift: Hellish Kick)

'My, my, my… this is… amazing!' Lucius thought to himself.

The new addition of the data showed that the injector nod Hell energy on others truly did have an effect. Though Lucius knew this was not enough, as this was just a single test subject for now.

For all he knew, Keith may have just been lucky to survive this. And there would be way more different problems to this that Lucius would have to find out later. 

There were several questions that straight away appeared in Lucius's mind.

He wondered if the same effect would be there for people that did not have gifts and were gift less. Then he wondered if the rank of gift someone had affected the success of hell energy corruption or not.

He thought this because he understood it was Aether reacting with Hell energy as it did in his body, to attenuate its volatility. In his past world, Lucius had seen plenty of people who had died due to hell energy and its corruption. 

It was not a simple energy to handle and could affect everything from living creatures to inanimate objects. If an area reached up to acertain level of hell energy concentration, it would start to change.

The hell energy would affect everything around it and modify them, turning the area similar to that of hell. This was the reason why hell energy was strictly forbidden for most nations.

Well… except for the Great Barrom clan's area. They were the main users of hell energy along with Demonic mana and thus were the arch enemies of the Theocracy of Thara. Their battles would leave behind areas that were devastated by hell energy, and the priests of Thara would then have to come and purge the area of hell energy.

The same would be needed for other humans if they came in contact with hell energy. Certain people though, were naturally resistant to hell energy and could bear large concentrations of it. These people were often of different races or had unique bloodlines.

For commoners though, the priests would have to come to purify them. That is, if they survived till then. There were a few different results of hell energy corruption that were well known. The first was just death caused by hell energy as it would devastate the body. 

The second was when the body actually survived the corruption of the hell energy. If they did, then they were likely to be resistant to hell energy, but even then most people would end up becoming crippled. 

The third option was that they would mutate due to the hell energy. Such people were called as the 'Lost' as they would lose all semblance of humanity and would mutate grotesquely. They would either grow serial limbs, strange fangs, or gain new abilities like breathing fire.

In a way, it was the body's survival mechanism that would cause something like this. Though in ninety percent of the cases, the infected person would just die while five percent would be able to survive. And the final five percent would just become the Lost.

Though this five percent chance of becoming a Lost could be increased by certain methods that the Great Barrom Clan was proficient in. In fact, these 'Lost' were one of the several weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the Great Barrom clan.

In many of the wars that had been fought, the 'lost' were the cannon fodder that was used at the front lines. They could be replenished rather easily, and all captured prisoners of war would be turned into the Lost.

It was this very corruption to become a 'Lost' that Lucius was interested in. He himself had participated in the creation of several 'Lost' and knew the process very well. He knew the power behind them and also knew how they could be controlled.

Most people thought they were uncontrollable beings that would do nothing but kill and destroy. But their creators obviously had the methods to control them. 

'If I can make Lost… or perhaps even more specimens like Keith, I may very well be able to make an entire army on my own.' Lucius thought to himself.

Lucius looked at Kiana and Donald with an interested glint in his eyes. He had seen that there was actually a different version of a gift that could be unlocked with the corruption of the hell energy and he was wondering how he could unlock that.

'The way Nexus can give me more information when I use Hell Aether must be my own version of the corrupted gift. But then why does it now show it like that?' Lucius wondered.

He and his two companions reached the carriage just like this and boarded it, deciding to head to an inn for now. On the way, Lucius continued thinking, as he came up with more theories and from then he formed some hypothesis.

'Perhaps the difference lies in the control… while I was able to combine the Hell energy with Aether, it is not necessary that everyone will be able to do the same. From seeing Keith, it did not seem like he was able to form that, he still had pure hell energy in his body.' Lucius thought.