"The half-faced Revenant is hiding somewhere in the dark. Once I evolve into a corpse collector, hunting it down will become easy," Kev continued thinking.
The threat posed by the half-face wasn't as immense as Dakun, but it was immediate.
He had to deal with it first. Otherwise, he might not even live long enough to have an encounter with Dakun.
The half-face's intelligence wasn't worse than a human. It was perhaps a little better.
He had nearly died because of its plot!
If he hadn't been smart enough to use the terrain of the underground space to his advantage, and if the ordinary Revenants hadn't been simple-minded creatures, he would have been the one dead instead of the massive wave of Revenants the half-face had pulled toward him to kill him!
If he left it be, there would be no end to his future troubles.
But he wasn't strong enough to kill it.
He needed to evolve and become a special class holder of the low rank.
Then he would gain the strength to hunt it down!
Kev clenched his fist, "Let's prepare."
He blocked the hole with some corpses so it wouldn't see what he was doing.
Then he drew a ritual circle on the cold, hard floor using the blood of the Revenants he'd just slaughtered.
One-fifth of the corpses in the room were placed all over it.
"There's one last thing I need to do before I can begin the ritual with confidence."
With the back of his hand, Kev wiped the sweat from his face, recalling that the success of the ritual depended on the vitality of the person performing it.
If he ran out of vitality midway, not only would the ritual fail, but he would also lose his life.
To counter this, he absorbed the countless nuclei obtained from slaying over a hundred Revenants.
His lifespan increased, and his vitality surged beyond known limits, becoming as dense and deep as a beast's.
With no time to waste, he sat cross-legged in the center of the ritual circle.
Around the spot he was sitting on, various symbols were drawn.
He needed to mark them with his own blood to bring the ritual circle's power to life.
Ugh!
He felt a sharp sting as he pressed hard on the wound across his palm. Fresh blood was drawn out and the symbols were smeared by it.
Immediately after, the circle came to life, glowing with an eerie, ominous red light.
Whirlpools opened beneath the two dozen corpses placed strategically on the ritual circle, swallowing them whole.
Once the corpse vanished from sight, the whirlpools closed.
The ritual circle's glow intensified after the whirlpool closed.
It began shrinking, its size receding, folding in on itself, converging toward Kev. Its blood-red light focused solely on him.
He remained perfectly still, not flinching, not blinking, letting everything play out without interfering.
Eventually, the ritual circle compressed into a single, tiny point that burned like the tip of a recently lit cigarette.
Then it turned into incense-like smoke, swirling up his body and snaking into his nostrils.
A bitter, acrid stench filled his senses.
Then came the burn.
His heart suddenly felt like it had caught fire, searing with unbearable heat as if he'd been trapped in a sauna for hours. His vision dimmed.
From there, it only got worse.
The fire that had ignited in his heart spread rapidly through his entire body.
The same burning sensation consumed his limbs, chest, and skull.
His flesh crackled.
Unable to bear it, his skin cracked like a mirror.
From those cracks, waves of intense heat surged out, raising the room's temperature by several degrees.
In that moment, Kev felt like a chicken trapped in an oven and cooked alive. The pain was maddening, ripping apart his sanity.
"Arghhhhh!"
Kev screamed his lungs out, his complexion turning deathly pale in an instant, realizing too late what a huge mistake he had made.
He had underestimated the price of the ritual.
Evolution wasn't child's play.
A single mistake could reduce even the strongest of powerhouses to dust!
The pain ravaged his body like a lifelong disease.
The effects were immediate.
His body grew thin, as if sucked dry of its vitality.
His eyelids grew heavier.
His limbs felt weak.
A great sense of weakness stuck to his senses like a thick viscous liquid.
Doubts crept into his mind.
Am I going to survive this?
Although he had followed the instructions related to the ritual in his memory down to the very last letter, the things he was experiencing while undergoing the ritual was enough to shake his resolve and make his mind waver.
Consumed by intense unbearable pain, he became uncertain about his future, his exhaustion surging.
As his chest nearly stuck to his back and his eyes began to close,
an aura of death emanated from him—
the kind that should only come from an old man with one foot in the grave.
At that moment, the corpses blocking the only way in and out of the room were pushed aside.
From the hole, Half Face emerged with a wide grin on its face.
It had sensed Kev drawing closer to death and had come to deliver the finishing blow.