[You killed a Level 1 Snake, achieving a feat that few can accomplish.]
[You faced a Fate Invader and emerged victorious. Fate smiles upon you.]
'A Fate Invader?' Ryan was perplexed as he read that line before his eyes. 'Does it mean Kazak? Why is it called a Fate Invader?'
It was the first time he had seen anything like this. There was no mention of it in the novel.
[The Path of the Devourer has chosen you as its bearer and blessed you with superhuman abilities and capabilities.]
[You have become a Walker of a Hidden Path.]
'Finally...' Ryan felt his body surrounded by a strangely powerful energy.
Spirituality.
It was incredibly potent, yet strangely pure. He had never felt it before, not even when he was a Divine in his past life.
Every part of his body, every limb, every muscle, every bone was permeated by it. It felt so good that he was about to lose himself in that pleasure. He was being healed and cleansed of the toxicity of the poison.
The words: You have become a Walker, blossomed before his eyes.
And the System finally showed him what he was waiting for.
[You have obtained the Divine Rank Skill: Spiritual Devourer.]
[You have obtained the Divine Rank Skill: Spiritual Synthesis.]
'Starting with the Divine Rank this time...' He smiled broadly. 'This time I won't fail,' he swore to himself.
In his past life, he had to increase the rank of his skill slowly to continue ascending as a Walker, so his journey was long and complicated compared to others. This time, he didn't need to, as he was already starting with the highest rank.
[Description of the Spiritual Devourer Skill: You can devour the Spirituality of Walkers from any path, allowing you to improve the quality and power of your own.]
[Description of the Spiritual Synthesis Skill: You can synthesize two or more Spirits or Spirituality Orbs, which will result in a possible improvement in spiritual rank or a greater number of Spirits obtained.]
Ryan was excited to see that he had obtained an additional skill he shouldn't have. He recalls that Spiritual Synthesis was granted to Max up to Level 3. He already had it from his first level.
But he still hadn't seen what he wanted, so he continued looking through the System windows.
Finally, he found what he was looking for after a second of searching.
[You have collected 40 Spirituality Orbs. Do you want to synthesize them?]
He smiled... 'Of course I do!'
[Spiritual Synthesis has been activated]
[40 Spirituality Orbs obtained before becoming a Walker are being synthesized, please wait...]
[Process complete]
[You have gained 8 Spirits!]
[Spirits: 8/100.]
"Eight spirits?! This is a blessing!"
His body was filled with spirituality with a high degree of purity. Every part of his body seemed to be filled with strength. His muscles grew stronger, and his bones became harder. His eyes shone brightly.
To level up, you need to gather spirits. Spirituality is one way to gather them, especially if it comes from a Walker, as it will be easier to condense it into a spirit.
But it usually requires a lot of spirituality, and it's not as easy as the Devourer's Path makes it seem.
In fact, obtaining spirituality from other Walkers is not a recommended practice. All who do so fall into madness and become a Contaminating Monster that must be erased to prevent it from contaminating the Path it travels.
The only way to do this safely is to allow a specialized purification item to purify the spirituality obtained from the Walker.
The exception to this is a path as special as this one, which exists primarily for this purpose: to devour spirituality.
For normal Walkers, it is best to condense and improve the quality of their spirituality through intensive training or in places like this Ruin, which have spirituality in the atmosphere. By condensing and improving, one strengthens one's spirit and creates spirituality; that was the path Ryan followed in his past life.
A long, but interesting path.
But now... it didn't seem like it would be the same as before.
The moment Spirituality processed in his body, a tremor woke him from his deep thoughts.
The ruin was shaking, seemingly writhing, like a child who had been deprived of his favorite toy or who had been denied what he wanted.
'Arnold!' Ryan realized he didn't have time, so he immediately started running.
Thanks to finally becoming a Walker, obtaining the System healed his wounds and cured him of the poison, allowing him to run at full speed.
The tremor in the ruin caused its walls to begin to collapse. The spirituality seemed to have suddenly gone mad, banging against the walls as if it wanted to escape.
Ryan ran down the hallway, dodging large chunks of rock falling from the ceiling. The tremor made it difficult, but he quickly reached the hallway he had been assigned to.
When he arrived, his body tensed.
Brandon was nowhere to be seen.
Arnold...
He was lying on the floor, bleeding.
His heart tightened, and he ran toward him to avoid a huge rock falling from the ceiling.
As soon as he grabbed him, he realized he was still alive.
Arnold seemed to smile kindly when he saw him coming, even with blood coming out of his mouth and his terrible wounds.
"You... did it... Young Master... Puff."
"Don't talk; I'll get you out of here!" he shouted. He tried to carry him, but at that moment, the ceiling collapsed, and he had to move aside.
The fall of those powerful rocks cut off his retreat, and the rocks above him were about to come down. He tried to run, but Arnold stopped him.
"No... You won't make it that way..." He spoke softly. "You can't... save me. That's... okay. Put me down."
"No..."
"Do it." Arnold tightened his grip on his arm and seemed to look at him angrily.
Ryan clenched his hands, jumped again to dodge one of the rocks from the ceiling, and put him on the ground.
He understood.
Saving him now was impossible. Not even his mother's potion could do it, because his heart was partially destroyed.
It would require a potion made by a Level 7 alchemist specializing in healing, one of Divine Rank!
How many of those existed in the world?
Not many. And his family didn't have one.
Arnold finally smiled, and his gaze softened.
"Young Master... tell My Lord to take care of himself... take care of yourself too... take care of the Queen... phew..." Blood poured from his mouth, but he forced himself to speak.
"Brandon... he's strange. Maybe... he wants to kill all of you..."
Finally, he moved his consciousness to his storage device and took out a vial of poison. With the sheer force of his soul, he pushed his hand and handed it to Ryan.
"I didn't want to use it... because I knew I would die... I couldn't... kill My Lord's brother..." he said. Even though he could have done it, the "couldn't" he said referred to the fact that he didn't have enough evil in his heart to do it.
That's why Ryan trembled with rage. 'Damn Brandon...'
"But..." He spoke again. "It will surely save you... don't be as soft as me..." he said and pressed it against his hand.
"Before... I die... I will give you some advice..."
"Find Minister Martin... they want to frame him for being the culprit, and he is... very loyal to the kingdom... I'm sure he will help you become strong."
After saying this, Arnold pressed the poison with his fingernails and broke it.
Ryan was surprised by the sudden movement and tried to pull the poison toward himself so as not to harm him, but it was too late. The poison splashed onto Arnold's body, and the veins in his body bulged, causing him terrible pain.
"You..."
Arnold smiled once more. "Spirituality can travel from here to Brandon... I didn't want to give it to him. I hope my spirituality can strengthen you on your path, Young Lord. Don't blame yourself, this was what I wanted."
Soon, the veins in his body shattered, and the rest of his heart exploded, at the same time as his brain did.
He died, and his finger remained pointing toward his own hallway. It seemed to say: run that way, you can save yourself.
Ryan's body immediately absorbed Arnold's spirituality... he went cold.
His fists clenched, but he couldn't do anything. After closing his eyes for a brief moment, he ran out into Arnold's hallway. That one hadn't collapsed as much, so he could run to the beginning, where the ruin teleported him to the front door.
Even this was enveloped in a tremor that seemed to want to bring everything down. Although he had trouble keeping his balance after the teleportation, he managed to run out the door, where some people were already waiting.
The Second Prince's subordinate was standing next to two of his own, but they were all seriously injured. Perhaps the first one could survive, but whether he could continue on his path as a Walker was debatable.
Several of Brandon's subordinates (7) were also present. They were fairly healthy, but no one else was.
Ten people in total, eleven including him. Brandon was nowhere to be seen.
When everyone saw Ryan come out, they frowned. His survival was an amazing feat, but...
Those who were Walkers could clearly see that he had become one of them, for spirituality shone from his body.
'Did the Ninth Prince finally succeed?' some of them thought.
Then the door opened again.
Brandon.
At that moment, the situation of ruin became more apparent. The mountain began to sink into the lake and slowly disappeared from view.
Ryan couldn't stay here. More than 200 people had died in that ruin, and there was no chance of them coming back from there. And among those, most of the survivors listened to Brandon. The rest were half dead.
Right now, nothing could stop them from carrying out the order to kill him. So he immediately mounted one of the horses and rode off at full speed.
Brandon was drawn to the horse's neighing and frowned as he watched it ride away.
His fists clenched, his nails digging into his palms. Blood dripped from them. He had stayed a little longer in the ruins looking for Ryan, but he couldn't find him because of the collapse.
And he had become a Walker; he could see it clearly from a distance.
'So in the end, you ruined my plans for one of my subordinates to obtain that Hidden Path, little brother...' His eyes flashed dangerously. 'I will kill you. If that dangerous path is not with me, no one else is worthy of having it.'