Facing the monster charging toward him, Rhys sighed.
Another one who liked close combat.
He could feel the blood in his own body beginning to stir. With a thought, he casually suppressed the disturbance, then raised his hand and cast an Impediment Jinx, stopping the charging monster in front of him.
Boiling Blood felt as though he had slammed into an invisible wall of air and immediately knew something was wrong.
He had already used his strongest ability: Blood Boiling.
Yet the technique that had always worked without fail was completely useless today. The other party had neutralised his strongest move without so much as blinking.
On top of that, his plan to get close, take advantage of the chaos, and count it as a victory as long as he touched Rhys had been ruined by a single Impediment Jinx.
Boiling Blood decided that he should create some distance and switch to ranged attacks.
As long as he attacked frequently enough, surely one of them would land eventually?
His thinking was correct.
In terms of raw strength, he was far inferior to Rhys, and his innate ability was also countered. Under normal circumstances, there was absolutely no possibility of defeating him.
His only chance was to exploit the rule that landing a single hit counted as a win.
But as he pulled away, Rhys fully expanded his domain as well.
The ground beneath Rhys's feet turned muddy, while the moisture in the air grew increasingly dense.
Boiling Blood took a quick step backward and leapt five or six metres away.
He crouched low to the ground.
The pustules covering his body burst one after another, and the pus inside floated into the air, ready to shoot forward the next second.
This was another technique he had developed on his own.
If an ordinary person came into contact with the poison inside those pustules, the mildest outcome would be rotting flesh and exposed bone. In more severe cases, they would die from the poison.
The attack also covered an extremely wide area, so the chances of grazing his merciful father were very high.
Boiling Blood spread both hands.
Under his control, the pus transformed into countless fine needles.
At a glance, it looked as though a layer of green mist surrounded him.
Upon closer inspection, however, that green mist was actually formed from tens of thousands of poisonous needles.
"Go!"
Boiling Blood thrust both hands forward.
In his imagination, the poisonous needles would surge toward his merciful father and attack him from every direction without leaving a single blind spot.
With so many needles, all he needed was for one to hit!
But after he gave the command, the poisonous needles did not move at all.
Confused, Boiling Blood looked up.
Then the needles suddenly shot toward him instead.
Boiling Blood: ?
Before he could react, tens of thousands of poisonous needles pierced his body, riddling him like a sieve.
Since the poison on the needles was actually made from his own bodily fluids, there was no risk of poisoning himself.
But the physical damage caused by the needles themselves could not be ignored.
In a single exchange, Boiling Blood completely lost the ability to resist.
The moisture in the air combined with the remaining poison to form a crescent-shaped blade.
With a gentle turn, it severed Boiling Blood's head.
Rhys lifted Boiling Blood's head in one hand and said with a smile, "It's over. Looks like you lost. But don't be discouraged. My abilities just happen to counter yours rather well."
That was true.
Whether it was blood manipulation or controlling liquid to form poisonous needles, Boiling Blood's abilities were essentially inferior versions of Rhys's own, which meant Rhys countered him completely.
The infected possessed astonishing vitality.
An ordinary person would have died immediately after being decapitated, but Boiling Blood could still speak.
"I..."
Boiling Blood's severed head opened its mouth and forced out a few words.
Rhys lowered his head, curious about what the fellow still wanted to say.
"...haven't lost yet."
As he spoke, the "chimney" on top of his head suddenly released a burst of hot smoke.
Rhys was holding Boiling Blood's head in his hand at that moment.
Caught off guard, the hot smoke erupting from the top of his head actually scorched Rhys's palm.
"Hahaha!"
Seeing that he had finally succeeded, Boiling Blood burst into delighted laughter.
The last traces of life within him rapidly faded away.
Rhys shook his head helplessly.
The fellow had actually managed to do it.
Since Boiling Blood had completed the task Rhys had set beforehand, he was entitled to receive his reward.
Rhys raised a hand and summoned Boiling Blood's body over, then placed his head back onto his neck.
At the same time, he mobilised his magic to stop Boiling Blood's blood from flowing out through the wounds.
However, Rhys was not a wizard skilled in medicine. Everything he did was still unable to prevent the continued loss of the other party's life force.
Seeing this, Rhys could only take out the original plague potion and pour it over Boiling Blood's wounds.
He did not think it would have much effect.
After countless mutations, the original potion and the plague infecting Boiling Blood were already almost two completely different things. Rhys did not believe this potion would be of any help to Boiling Blood in his current condition.
Yet an astonishing scene occurred.
The instant the potion came into contact with Boiling Blood's wounds, his body began bubbling as though it were a pot of boiling soup.
Large and small bubbles rose across his body.
When the bubbles burst, the pus inside flowed out as well.
To anyone else, these fluids would have looked disgusting and posed a serious threat to their health, but at this moment, they became Boiling Blood's source of life.
As the toxic fluid flowed into his wounds, Rhys watched in shock as Boiling Blood's head actually reconnected with his body, while the aura that had been slowly fading away began to gather once more.
'A miracle of life.'
That was the only explanation Rhys could think of.
It seemed his potion had evolved into something extraordinary within the alchemical world.
A few minutes later, Boiling Blood opened his eyes again.
By then, he had completely recovered, and his strength seemed to have increased considerably as well.
"Thank you for your blessing, merciful father!"
He dropped excitedly to his knees and kowtowed several times before Rhys.
Rhys looked at him with a complicated expression, unsure what to say.
So he really could bestow blessings upon the infected creatures of the alchemical world...
But that had no meaning at all!
His mission was to kill all of the powerful beings in the alchemical world, allowing Rowena to restart this world afterward.
In other words, the more people he "blessed," the more work he would create for himself.
As for ordering the infected to hunt down the humans of the alchemical world, even setting aside whether the infected would actually obey him, the issue of efficiency alone was enough to make Rhys abandon the idea.
"There's no need to thank me. You earned it."
Rhys moved his magic and stopped Boiling Blood from continuing to kowtow.
"Tell me where the powerful humans are now."
A look of surprise appeared on Boiling Blood's face.
"Do you mean that you intend to..."
"Yes. That's why I returned here. Tell me their locations."
Rhys's expression remained calm.
He felt that a native like Boiling Blood should know the locations of those powerful individuals far better than he did. With Boiling Blood guiding him, he could save a great deal of time.
His merciful father was willing to personally deal with those who had rejected the blessing, which was exactly what Boiling Blood wanted.
He immediately took out a map and marked the general areas where several famous human powerhouses were active.
Boiling Blood understood that the return of his merciful father meant the fate of this world were about to change.
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12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI