Spirit Soul

"So what are we doing with him now?" Jaden asked, looking at the unconscious chubby merchant.

It was already morning, and their distance to the hidden cave in the mountain was quite big. Being well hidden in a small valley, they had all time in the world to do whatever they wanted to do.

Kyle looked at the chubby merchant and shrugged his shoulders.

"I let the girls decide," he merely said. Kyle felt extreme anger at the sight of the chubby merchant but the three women in his group were far worse.

Their expressions were full of wrath, and hatred. Even Yasmine, who had acted rather calm beforehand, looked at the chubby merchant as if he was the most disgusting existence in the entire Universe.

"Yeah, understandable," Jaden agreed before leaving their side.

He didn't want to have anything to do with what was going to happen. Jaden didn't know the chubby merchant, and even if he would have known him, torture was not something he liked or was involved with.

It didn't matter what the others did, but he chose to leave the small place they had remodeled into a temporary place to stay.

"Girls, he is all yours," Kyle could only say as he took a chair out of his spatial ring. He placed the chubby merchant on it and choose to go cultivating.

He had yet to enter the Krysal stage, and the same applied to Arashi. The girls were already at the Low Krysal stage, which meant that they were a lot stronger than he was.

Aurora's Sprite armor was very helpful but it would take a while before Kyle would catch up to the girls. After all, Arashi's racial limit was likely to be at the Low ranks of the Krysal stage.

He would have to evolve soon, which required lots of energy to nurture the evolution. Accumulating the energy would take time, and Arashi's evolution would also take a while. Even if Kyle made a good prediction by guessing 3 months, it was impossible for him to cultivate in that time.

This meant that the girls would be able to cultivate for 3 months, while Kyle would be left behind even further.

Kyle didn't like that, which was why he told himself that he would accumulate enough souls to nurture Aurora whenever possible, and Arashi the moment he was to finish his evolution.

It was not as if he would have to think about this right off the bat but the future wouldn't wait for him so that Kyle could make a decision about what to do.

'It's possible to accelerate Arashi's evolution by nourishing him, as well but…that will require even more energy.' Kyle sighed at this thought before he started to cultivate.

Aurora helped them and Arashi used the right cultivation energies out of his surrounding area to convert it to soul force. They also used Mana Stones, Spirit Stones, and Prym stones which Kyle had taken out of his spatial ring.

Each member in their group received a fair share of the cultivation resources they required, so Kyle was left with all the odd stones because Arashi could use them.

Taking a deep breath, he ignored the fact that the chubby merchant had just awoken as he started to focus on cultivating.

While Kyle was at the other side of their temporary base, the three women looked at the chubby merchant with fiery expressions.

"I want to start," Beatrice said, stepping forward, only for Yasmine and Selene to grasp one arm each.

"Hold your horses, woman. We want to start as well," Yasmine said, glaring at Beatrice.

The old Vampire-like woman had her fair amount of advantages in the last few weeks. She was the most straightforward out of them, and always the first one to go. However, this time, both Selene and Yasmine wanted to start as well!

"Yep, I want to start as well!" Selene interrupted before she clarified the most important point, "I am the one, who hates him the most because I was with Kyle when everything happened!!"

Selene was stubborn, and her dark eyes were showing how serious she was.

None of the three girls ever thought that they would fight each other to be the first one to torture someone. That was simply ridiculous.

"W-w-what the hell is going on here?!? Where am I? W-who are you guys?!" The chubby merchant had awoken, and his stammering voice reached the three women, whose heads turned in his direction.

Primordial energy circulated through Selene's body as she punched into the chubby merchant's face. He fell over, his head his the ground, and a groan escape his mouth.

"Shut up, you piece of shit," Selene said calmly, while her expression was everything but calm.

'Yoo, woman, you should calm down…' Yasmine thought, swallowing her saliva before taking a step back.

"You can take him," She just said, while Beatrice nodded her head agreeing, "Yeah, just beat him up a little bit, let loose all the emotions you hid away. Just don't hit us all of a sudden, we're innocent."

Beatrice smiled oddly when she looked at Yasmine, who could only return the same sour smile.

'Well she probably feels guilty and all that stuff. Not that she is at fault for anything that happened to them. The chubby merchant's doing was at fault. You could even say it's the seventh prince's fault. But it's not like we can destroy the entire Thunderclaw kingdom just because of what happened…not yet, at least," Yasmine's voice was calm and she sounded understanding.

However, the moment Beatrice heard what Yasmine said last, she couldn't help but feel a little bit threatened.

'It's good that she is on my side. Yasmine doesn't look like a psychopath, but it looks like she is not that sane either…well none of us is apparently.'  Beatrice thought showing a faint smile before she sighed deeply.

"I will go cultivating as well, I want to be more useful for Kyle. If you want, you can torture him before me," Beatrice sounded rather nonchalant while speaking before she added,

"I will use my blood affinity to slowly take away his blood, and let him die of blood loss when everything is over. So do whatever you want, I just want to see him die with my own eyes."

Yasmine shuddered at the thought of Beatrice using her ability to control the merchant's blood and to deprive him of the blood he needed to survive. Slowly taking away enough blood to kill him over a long period would certainly be a gruesome death.

If Beatrice wanted to, she could probably drain his blood and return it moments before his condition would enter a critical stage. The thought that Beatrice was likely to be the best at torturing others because of the abilities she possessed was clear to Yasmine's eyes.

However, upon seeing what Selene was doing, Yasmine could only blink.

"Yeah, just do whatever you want…if he is still alive, I will call you over…Though I'm not sure that I will get him in one piece…" Her voice was quiet but Beatrice could clearly hear her.

Upon looking over to Selene, both could see that the chubby merchant's entire face was already disfigured and that his hands and feet had already been impaled by darkness needles…hundreds of tiny darkness needles.

"Yeah…if something is left, I mean…" Beatrice merely said before she went to a different corner of their temporary base.

Meanwhile, Yasmine kept watching over Selene, preventing her from killing the chubby merchant accidentally.

But even if she kept watch over Selene and the chubby merchant, the way Selene tortured the chubby merchant was too much for her to look at, once in a while.

The painful screams of the chubby merchant could be heard for several hours as Selene pierced him with whatever attack she had up to her sleeves. Pulled a few teeth, his nails, cut off some fingers, and pierced him in areas where the pain was the highest but the mortality basically non-existent.

It was as if Selene knew everything about the body of an Aldra, the chubby merchant especially, as if she knew where it hurt the most and what she had to do to cause the biggest fear within the chubby merchant.

After seeing how Selene treated the chubby merchant, Yasmine didn't even want to do something to him anymore. She couldn't hurt him more either way. In fact, she would probably soothe his pain even if she wouldn't intend to do that.

Beatrice and Kyle had come over because they couldn't cultivate. The chubby merchant was too loud, disrupting them.

"Selene is really…talented…" That was everything Kyle could say, and he felt like Selene did the best she could. In fact, she looked satisfied with what she had just done.

Her blood-smeared head turned in the others' direction and she began to smile faintly as she asked innocently,

"You guys wanna join?"