Viewed from the mountain, the Blood Pool had seemed unremarkable. Only after descending did they see that, as the blood flowed and the altar expanded, it had already spilled over the edges, turning an area hundreds of feet across into a muddy mire.
The mortals who had been struggling and wailing had fallen still at some point, each beginning to exhibit a strange condition.
The Earth Rank Spirit Tamer who had descended with Qunyao noticed that slightly fewer than half the mortals had silently sunk into the pool, disappearing beneath its surface.
Were those people dead?
He nodded to himself, then looked again at those still floating.
Judging by previous experience, this batch of mortals driven into the Blood Pool included men and women, young and old. There had been exactly one hundred of them, no more and no fewer. At a glance, roughly fifty still had their heads above the blood, floating on its surface.
From the smattering of knowledge he possessed, he knew this was only possible through the extraordinary power they had acquired. This Blood Pool was no ordinary body of water. Without special protection, even a Spirit Tamer would be devoured by it.
Yet those people had strangely begun to float. Clearly, they were no longer what they had been.
The Earth Rank Spirit Tamer studied them closely and suddenly saw their bodies beginning to revert, one after another.
Depending on their individual constitutions or how well they accepted the transformation, some changed faster than others, and the results varied.
The most outstanding seemed to be a young man who looked to be in his twenties. In just a few breaths, he returned to his original appearance. Judging by the surface alone, almost no trace of his previous mutation remained.
The others retained varying degrees of