Debauchery of a Soul-Eating Wraith

Adrian flushed and then he frowned.

"Since when was it jealousy to state facts?" he asked with a shrug.

Evian walked past Lady Myrine until he was only two feet away from Adrian.

"'Facts' is it? Well, here's a fact for you;

You are a pathetic man-child."

Adrian clenched his fists and took an angry step forward.

"Am not!"

Evian's lips twitched and then he burst out laughing.

"'Am not!' Can you not hear how pathetic you sound?

You're the firstborn, the so-called genius, and yet you're just bland. Your only notable personality trait is your jealousy of me."

With a face screwed up on anger, Adrian raised a fist to punch Evian's smugly smiling face.

"You shut your mouth!"

"Make me!" Evian retorted and raised the bloody sword in his hand.

"Enough!" Lady Myrine said and she was suddenly between the two with her arms stretched out and forcing them apart.

"Really? You think now is the right time to start an argument?"

The disappointment in their Mother's tone hit Adrian the hardest and he dropped his fist before Evian dropped his sword.

There was a few seconds of silence which Evian broke with a sigh.

"I'm tired. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my room sleeping so no one should need me."

Without another glance at anyone on the scene, Evian started making his way deeper into the Estate and although he did not need guidance, a couple of guards still walked with him. Likely to provide protection.

'Eh, better late than never, I guess'

Evian was already walking away, being guided back to his room by an entourage of guards, when Lord Stygian realized he had questions to ask him about the Kidnapping. Maybe Koln had said something that could lead them to the culprit.

'Eh, best to let him rest. I'll ask him tomorrow.'

Once Evian was gone from anyone's sight, Lady Myrine glared at Adrian.

Adrian put up his palms.

"What?"

Even though he sounded indignant, Adrian still shook a bit at the intensity of his Mother's stare.

"That was a very foolish statement you made," she said.

Lord Stygian stretched out a placative hand.

"My Lady, it was insensitive for Adrian to make mention of it at that moment in Evian's presence but the theory does hold merit.

Evian might not have been the target at all."

Adrian smiled a bit at his Father's seeming support but that smile slipped off his face after he was smacked in the face by an intense flare of pressure from his Mother.

"Who cares who the target was? Intruders managed to get in here and get away with one of our Sons- That is all that matters." Lady Myrine said with an angry placement of her hands on her hips.

Lord Stygian sighed.

"You are right. We must tighten security until the Culprit is found"

-

...

-Evian's Room-

The first thing Evian saw when the doors opened were the two maids he recognized to have prepared him for the feast a few days ago.

The two were putting the finishing touches to cleaning his room of blood and bits of brain matter. The bodies of the three intruders had already been carried out and with the perfume scent that had been let out the in room, there were no traces left of what had happened there that very night.

The physical traces were all gone but Evian could still feel a remnant in the aura of the room. He didn't hate it though. It actually felt comfortable.

The two stood up when he walked into the room and bowed before stepping toward him and helping him out of his bloody clothes.

"Thank you," Evian said in gratitude.

"We've prepared you a bath," said one of the maids.

"Good," Evian said, "Now leave"

"As you wish" They chorused and picked up his bloody clothes before walking out and closing the room doors behind them.

Once he was alone, Evian picked up the bloody sword, the one thing he had not allowed the Maids to clear away, and walked into the bathroom to clean himself.

He lay in the bath water and smiled as he watched all the blood and dirt on his body and hair get corroded by whatever ingredient had been added to the water. He cleaned the bloody sword as well and for the first time since he seized it, he observed it.

He had seen swords in this world. He had seen other weapons as well and he had also inferred that they were not all the same in quality. 𝘣𝑒𝑑𝑛𝘰𝑣𝘦𝘭.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Lord Stygian had not really gotten into teaching him about weapons or using them but from the bit he had mentioned, the weapon a knight uses must scale with said Knight. i.e. the stronger you become, the better the quality of your weapon must be or you risk having it broken by a superior weapon.

According to Lord Stygian, weapon quality in this world was ranked by stars; One Star- Nine Stars with each star correlating to a certain Knight Order or Arcane Circle.

For example,

First Order/Circle- One Star Weapon

"I'd imagine this sword is a Three-star weapon at best" Evian inferred judging by the strength of the wielder as well as the fact that he found it so easy to use.

Once a weapon is scaled higher than its wielder's strength, wielding won't come easy.

A Third Circle/Order Practitioner trying to wield a Nine-Star weapon is very likely to lose his/her life.

Evian observed the sword for a while longer before he nodded with satisfaction.

"Not a bad wield,"

He pressed the storage ring on his finger to the sword and watched it get sucked in.

"Alright. Now to see what else you've got in there" he mumbled to Koln's storage ring.

He clenched his fist and raised the ring up to eye level. His eyes were squinted and then his lips twitched in confusion.

'It's dawning on me I have no idea how to use a Storage ring.'

Lady Myrine had one and when she told him about storage options, she had also demonstrated taking things into her ring and taking them out but she hadn't actually explained.

"I'll tell you once you're ready to have one" she had told him.

'Well, I'm ready now and you're not here'

A storage pouch was easy enough to understand with its clear and fist-wide opening but a ring, without any visible openings, wasn't.

'Assistant, a little help?'

[Try pressing it to your forehead]

Evian listened and the moment the ring touched him, he felt a suction. It wasn't painful but it wasn't particularly pleasant either. The suction lasted for about five seconds and then lessened and began to fade away. As it did, Evian felt a forged connection in its place.

When Evian took the ring off his forehead, he realized he could 'see' into it. It was like a mental image.

"Wow"

The inside of the Storage ring was dark like the void of space but every single item inside was lit. The lighting of the objects was dim but against the black backdrop of the void, it was bright enough to highlight them.

An empty storage ring would likely look bland but the subtly floating object dimly glowing gave it an interesting beauty.

Evian looked around. He saw a pile of gold coins all individually stamped with the seal of the Verlice Royal Family as the official currency of the Kingdom.

"I wonder if that was Koln's pay for kidnapping me. Heh, who cares, it's all mine now"

There were a lot of potions inside the ring, a lot of spare robes, a lot of potion ingredients, a lot of books, and also a lot of manuscripts.

With a mental indication, Evian retrieved one of the manuscripts. He couldn't read any of the words but the circle on it contained strange symbols that told him what it was.

"An Arcane Spell. One of the ones he used on me, perhaps?"

He retrieved other manuscripts and they were either Arcane Spells as well or recipes for some kind of concoction. Likely with the use of the ingredients in the ring.

"I wonder if any of this could be useful to me"

[Doubtful.

There's only one place you can get what you need and will need...]

Evian rolled his eyes,

'Yeah, yeah, I know.

Unlock the Decadent Store!'