Sam let the shadow mice out as he walked through the ruins before reaching the city.
As usual, Sam was greeted by the clan leader. After those pleasantries, Sam just directly went into work. He doesn't know what disaster will come to this place. He doesn't have any idea on what kind of disaster will strike.
Everything around the city is very neutral. The forests are not special, the soil doesn't have any special qualities, there are no significant mineral ores and there is definitely no massive natural phenomenon.
The only significant thing about this place are those ruins.
Sam thought for a while about what could come here. Of course to not waste the time, he started building the formation already, but at the same time he sent the specters to take a look at the surroundings.
Since the ruins are still here, he wanted to see if there are any stray souls left from the previous city. After all, the guy killed his way through the city with his own hands. There should be a lot of resentment going on around at that time.
And from what the Shadow mice told him, there are a lot of skeletons that are still present.
There is a great chance that some spirits might have formed out of the resentment.
At least that is what Sam initially thought, but when the specters came back and gave him the report he was surprised by their findings.
They didn't find a single spirit. But they all felt that there is something present within the region they were searching.
They all had this feeling that someone is trying to watch, trying to reach to them.
"I could feel the gaze and the touch, but I couldn't see or sense the presence properly." Those are the words of the specter that had the most experience and most strength among them all.
This made Sam more confused.
After all, how could one feel the gaze and touch without sensing their presence? In fact, the gaze and the touch themselves are ways to sense their presence. The sentence itself is a bit contradictory.
But Sam knew that Specter is not being stupid. It must have been the feeling that it definitely had.
Sam felt a bit confused with it.
What is going to happen? What will cause the disaster this time? He doesn't know. But if he couldn't find that out the easy way before the disaster begins, he would have to find it the hard way.
"Fuck it."
Sam just went ahead and started making improvements. He didn't want to hold back this time.
This time he didn't even want to waste a single minute.
He started arranging the formation himself. Since he doesn't exactly know what kind of threat might come, he focused two things.
One is souls and another one is space.
Whether it is a life form or some non-living being that becomes sentient, souls are the best way to restrain their operations.
If the disaster comes in the form of living beings, then he can use the souls directly. But if the situation similar to time he dealt with Artemis comes, like how the trees got sentient at that time, the souls wouldn't have a direct impact.
But he can still use these souls wrestle for the control over the sentience of the objects and things that come at them. If it is related to soul necromancy, then of course Sam doesn't even need to worry about it.
Souls are the perfect counter for soul necromancy.
Sam started weaving a formation that basically acted as the playing field for all of his specters. Along with them, he even started summoning a bunch of random spirits with the spirit enchantement techniques and attached them to the souls.
Anyway, he already got a shit ton of souls from the previous mission. He didn't let go of the souls of the thousands of Giants, Lycans and Demons. He collected every single collectible soul.
He injected every single soul into the formation that he made around the city.
The control of it is going to be a bit troublesome. In the middle of the battle, Sam might have to deal with the God by himself, so he might need someone else with good enough will power to control these souls.
As for giving autonomy to the formation? He didn't even think of that. With that many souls and spectres, there is a great chance that it might go berserk, particularly when it has power to restrain the sentience and souls of other people.
So, he called for a meeting and gathered ten people from all the camps with various tests to check their will power.
He assigned different positions to them around the city. Their job is to provide a counter balance for the souls that are going to be doing the heavy lifting.
After the formation set up was done, Sam still had around half a day left. He decided to do one last thing around the city.
He connected himself with the formation at the centre and let the souls spread as vast as possible. They encroached throughout the city and also covered the ruins as a whole. The souls gathered energy around them and injected all of them into the ruins.
Sam then took a deep breath and activated observation ability.
He felt like a ton of bricks had fallen on his head. The headache and the pain in his nerves is way too severe.
He wanted to scream his lungs out, but he suppressed it all and just focused on observing the area.
He could see each spiritual energy particle in the whole area, but he could also see something else along with that. There is a faint read colored aura that is floating around along with those particles.
It is seeping out of the ground and merging with the air.
Sam felt weird.
He couldn't sense any energy fluctuations that could create this from the ground. But the aura is never ending and it is seeping out constantly.
After examining it a bit more, he suddenly realized something. One of the weaker souls that is part of the formation is acting a bit weirdly. The change is very small and it is negligible. But he felt that the soul became a bit more aggressive.
Not to the point the worry, in fact if not for his observation state, even Sam wouldn't have noticed this.
He wanted to test it more and instead of trying to understand what is it and what caused it, he tried to feel its presence. Just like how the spectres felt when they were searching here.
Indeed, just like how the spectres felt, he could feel its 'gaze' and he could feel its 'touch' but he couldn't exactly feel its 'presence'. But since Sam could use his observation ability he could 'see' its presence.
He let his soul get exposed to this red aura that is coming out of it.
He let himself be vulnerable just for a few moments and at that moment, he felt the presence of it clearly.
The red aura is trying to seep into his soul like it wanted to be one with it and as soon as it did, his body started feeling a bit a agitated.
He felt a bit angry. He doesn't know what he is angry about and why that feeling is coming out of him. He let more of the aura seep into him. The feeling amplified bit by bit.
The anger surged and soon it turned into a temptation. An urge to cause some violence. Sam immediately understood this feeling.
Its bloodlust.
He is very familiar with it. His own bloodlust is actually very high. But the bloodlust that coming from this is not as aggressive. It is very subtle. Like a slow drug. It is slowly urging him to cause violence and death.
Sam immediately expelled all of this and closed his soul out. He retracted the souls and reset the formation back.
He disconnected himself from the formation and looked into the horizon. He finally found out what is special around the city. But he doesn't know exactly what this bloodlust is going to do. How the god is going to take advantage of this.
He could think of a few ways to use it, but he cannot guarantee that the god will follow the same path as him.
Sam just decided to continue with the current arrangements. He just wanted to make sure that all of his preparations are done without any hitch.
At this moment, he suddenly felt something wrong with the formation around and went to a certain spot.
He observed the placement of the nodes and frowned. He contacted Sandhya immediately.
"I need you here ASAP. Bring the young masters here."
He didn't even wait for her reply. He just stood there and looked at the people working on the formation.
"Stop your work as it is."
New n𝙤vel chapters are published on f(r)e𝒆webn(o)vel.com