An Interesting Soul, Worthy of Reward

That was because Ian had already left the living room.

Otherwise.

He would definitely have connected Clark's injuries with the passenger plane crash that hadn't been fully prevented that morning. Clearly, Superman had encountered some rather mysterious crisis.

Of course.

Even if he knew about it, Ian still couldn't do anything. He was far too weak; anything capable of hurting Superman was beyond his current ability to approach.

In the second-floor hallway.

Ian chatted with his two brothers for a while and showed off his writer's talent a little before returning to his room. Jonathan was still shouting outside, asking Ian to work out with them.

"I'll add physical training to my schedule!" Ian called back through the door. Only after their footsteps gradually faded away did he plop down onto his bed.

"What the hell is going on?" He pulled open his jacket again and drew out the pendant beneath his shirt. It was still glowing, its deep black light flickering like breathing.

The black glow fell across Ian's face, driving out the room's lamplight. Ian frowned and raised the pendant before his eyes for a closer look.

What he mainly wanted was to find some trace of the Evil Spirit inside the pendant.

"Anyone there? Say something?" Ian tapped the pendant with a finger. It was merely a bored, aimless gesture born from having no clues, yet unexpectedly, it seemed to actually have some effect.

The moment he finished speaking.

The pendant's light suddenly began flashing violently, its frequency growing faster and faster, as if responding to his question. Ian's breath caught, and he instinctively glanced toward the bottom of his field of vision.

No additional negative status effects appeared.

"Bzzz~"

The pendant abruptly began to tremble faintly. The metal patterns across its surface twisted and writhed, unfurling like living things, as though some kind of Gateway had opened. Immediately afterward, strands of black matter seeped from the pendant, drifting as lightly as silk and slowly weaving together in the air with extraordinary gentleness.

Ian's eyes widened.

He watched the black matter gather and reform before him until, at last—it formed a sentence. A proper English sentence, like something straight out of an English textbook.

[An interesting life, worthy of reward.]

The words floated in midair.

Their form was neat.

As though written by a gentleman's hand.

Every stroke carried an ancient, mysterious aura. They hovered in the air, swaying faintly as though stirred by an invisible breeze, seeming liable to drift away at any moment.

"What the hell?"

Ian was a little stunned. He reached out, wanting to touch the words, but just as his fingertips were about to make contact, the black lettering suddenly scattered like spilled ink.

"Splash~"

Like stirred ink, it spun and gathered in the air.

Ian seemed to hear a familiar wail.

It was the voice of that Nun Wraith from before.

"Just as I thought! It ran into the pendant!" Ian marveled at his own clever guess, though he could also tell that perhaps the Nun Wraith had not entered the pendant voluntarily.

Very soon.

As the Evil Spirit's wailing faded, the black matter finally condensed in the air before Ian into a thumb-sized Black Crystal that floated there.

It slowly fell.

After hesitating for a moment, Ian still reached out and caught it.

The instant the crystal landed in his palm, an icy sensation spread along his skin, as though he were holding ice from the depths of the polar regions—or truly touching a cold soul.

"The pendant gave me a gift?" Ian muttered, raising the crystal beneath the light to inspect it closely. He hesitated, wondering whether this thing was meant to be swallowed whole. The black crystal was not entirely transparent; within it, he could vaguely see some kind of flowing shadow, like imprisoned mist.

It didn't look particularly tasty.

"But it seems pretty hard." Ian swore that he only wanted to test whether the Black Crystal or his teeth were harder. Even if his teeth shattered, he could use that to complete today's "leveling."

However.

That very curiosity nearly gave him a fright. Well, no danger occurred; it was just that what happened next completely exceeded his expectations.

The Black Crystal had barely approached Ian's mouth. Before Ian could even lick it to test whether it was salty, it turned into a cool liquid and slipped through his lips.

It truly melted upon entering his mouth, refining instantly.

There was no bitterness, much less any evil burning sensation. Instead, it was like a mouthful of chilled spring water—cool to the bone, instantly blending into every limb and organ, a little like jelly that could slide around on its own.

An unprecedented sense of clarity swept through his mind.

Ian felt stronger.

His mental state, in particular, had clearly improved greatly.

And not only that.

[Strength: 5.6—5.8]

[Constitution: 4.5—4.7]

[Intelligence: 2.4—2.6]

[Spirit: 4.2—6.8]

It wasn't just his [Spirit] and even [intelligence] attributes; even his [Strength] and [Constitution] had improved slightly. Of course, [Spirit] had increased the most.

This was even more than Ian had estimated he would gain from consuming the remaining Evil Spirit. It had directly turned him, a [Berserker], into someone whose [Spirit] was actually stronger than his [Strength].

His bloodline was seriously impure now.

"So it really was a gift." Ian was delighted at first, but then he noticed that, at some unknown point, a particularly strange pattern had appeared on the back of his hand.

Its shape was bizarre.

It resembled a black eye.

"Is this the price of a windfall?" Ian was somewhat startled, but he did not panic. He tried rubbing it hard with his other hand, but he couldn't rub it off.

His skin turned red from the rubbing, but the pattern did not budge.

It was like a brand.

Ian instinctively looked at his status panel. He had expected a new negative status effect to appear, but unexpectedly, the original [Soul Corruption] negative status had disappeared.

In its place was a new status display.

"No wonder I felt like so much of my wisdom had drained away." Ian felt somewhat regretful. He believed that the [Soul Corruption] status would surely have brought him surprises at certain crucial moments.

However.

He never expected it to disappear so silently just like that.

Without even a wave of its sleeve.

Without time to say goodbye.

The status now occupying that spot on the panel was also shaped like a pair of eyes, identical to the pattern on the back of Ian's hand. It was clearly an "official" explanation for the brand on his hand.

Only.

Unlike the negative statuses Ian liked, it had absolutely no effect. Though applied to Ian, it brought him no changes whatsoever.

[Death Knight Kin]

Only the status's name revealed what it actually was.