Supreme Magus novel Chapter 1305

Chapter 1305: The Price of Truth (Part 1)

No matter how good the Kingdom's anti-undead security measures were, they couldn't distinguish the regular living from those in the process of being turned into undead.

Not even Life Vision could do it. Even Awakened would need to examine everyone present with Invigoration to recognize them and even if they did, many thralls didn't even have a blood core since their master belonged to an undead species that couldn't bestow upon them any power until they were turned.

Only Soul Vision allowed a Guardian to identify from a distance the presence of a pseudo blood core or the deep-seated despise for the living typical of those who choose to become an undead.

Most of them were power-hungry people willing to pay undeath's heavy price, but some of them were just people suffering so much that they would do anything to make the pain stop.

They were the two kinds of people for which Baba Yaga had created the gift of immortality. Those willing to sacrifice part of their freedom in exchange for the strength to break the shackles of destiny and those who suffered from invisible wounds that not even a genius of light magic like Manohar could heal.

Undeath would make them strong in both the mind and the body, allowing them to shrug off any form of weakness.

'It seems you owe me, dear granddaughter.' Leegaain said via a mind link as he shared his Soul Vision with Faluel.

'What the heck are those?' She now saw through his eyes, and the dining hall looked like a scene from a haunted painting.

The elegant cherry wood tables and the comfortable chairs around them were among the few things that didn't appear distorted. Soul Vision revealed people's true nature and what Faluel saw wasn't pretty at all.

The smiling faces of the resort's staff had become filled with envy as they served at the tables or twisted with their daily worries. The guests, however, had now a monstrous appearance.

The thralls with a blood core looked like conjoined twins, with their undead side growing stronger as their human side got weaker.

The undead twin always bore the mark of their sire, allowing Faluel to recognize a Ghoul from the still dripping flesh in his mouth and a Blood Witch from the arcane runes that made her veins bulge.

Yet even more disgusting were the regular nobles sitting comfortably at their tables. Their deathly pale skin reflected the loss of humanity as anything but status and wealth lost meaning to them, while their bloody clothes represented how low they had stooped to get what they wanted.

Their faces were twisted in a perpetual smile filled with fangs that hissed against anyone who they envied or who had wronged them, no matter if the injustice was real or just perceived.

The shadows of the nobles were equally expressive. Instead of being black slates, they had faces distorted by greed and unnaturally long fingers that clawed at their neighbours in the futile attempt to steal from them the objects of their desire.

Unlike a Soul Projection that showed solely the dominant thought of its owner, Soul Vision revealed the true nature and even the history of its subjects, if one knew where to look.

'That's the reason why I don't like to go out often.' Leegaain replied while sitting at an edge table and asking for a menu. 'What do you want me to do with the thralls? I can easily dispose of them, but that will cost you.'

'I don't think that all of them are here for Lith's parents and not all undead are bad people. I'm not willing to slaughter them just because of their race.' Faluel replied.