Is that a Wisp?

After staying at the bandit nest for six months, Krune exited it for the first time, taking advantage of the night while the two kids were asleep. He slowly made his way over to the town and infiltrated it stealthily, roaming through its night district.

He roamed through the place and obtained information related to the filth present in the city. In other words, bandits, traffickers, and other people engaging in illegal things.

For the next two weeks, he started to prepare while gathering info, also buying some things that he needed along the way. In any case, the bandit nest had saved up enough funds for his use. So, he purchased the necessary materials with that, transporting them one after another to the hideout.

Even though it greatly exhausted his weary body that was aging rapidly with the passage of every day, Krune held on. Currently, he was performing four tasks.

First was educating and training the two kids. Second was meditating to integrate the memories of Su Zixin and Wang Hu into himself. Third was researching the weapon he was planning to create. And fourth…was capturing humans for the experiments.

That was the sole reason he was digging up for information in the first place. For every trip, he needed two people, a man and a woman. With that in mind, he found those that were scum, silently ambushing them in their homes during the middle of the night.

On alternate days, he brought in a woman and a man each to the bandit nest and locked them up in the secret room. He dislocated the joints of both, preventing them from escaping while also using the Cloud Whale to press on some nerves that prevented them from speaking.

The ones he captured were criminals that had murdered quite a few times. So, he had no qualms about using them as a sacrifice.

Upon seeing the tear-struck expression on the lady's face, Krune didn't bat an eye, calmly taking out the Nightmare Core as he placed it on her forehead, watching it slowly sink into her flesh.

In an instant, the lady struggled to break free as her body spasmed. Veins popped on her body, displaying the pain she was experiencing.

"You shouldn't have killed and tortured people if you're this afraid of it yourself," he muttered, turning around to gaze at the man that saw everything with a pale face.

Slowly, over the passage of days, Krune noticed the woman's body bulge slightly, nodding in response based on what he had witnessed in the cave of the Yin Beasts before. "It should take around a month to complete."

The reason he was doing this was to strengthen the Nightmare Core until it reached its peak. That was only possible by absorbing the essence in the bodies of the Yin Beasts it birthed. To make it reach the state he desired, just absorbing the essence of the hatchling Yin Beasts wasn't enough.

He needed blood from the adult versions. As the stomach of the woman continued to bulge, Krune made repeated trips to the cave of the Yin Beasts and transported the bugs that grew in one of the pools there.

It seemed that these bugs were able to eat anything edible. So, Krune was planning to feed them grass that grew plenty, even within the bandit cave. He could simply call it training and make the children do the work.

With that in mind, Krune transformed a large enough cave into a pool to house them, preventing the children from seeing such a scene, unwilling to destroy their innocence further. After all, what he was doing was pretty inhumane.

As there was more than enough space in the bandit nest, they didn't complain. Moreover, they were studying, training, eating, and sleeping. That was all they did, barely having any time to play. So, they didn't bother with the repeated trips he did and the mysterious containers he brought.

Even though they were curious, since he didn't say anything to them regarding it, they didn't ask him.

After a month had passed, the criminal lady died after giving birth to a hatchling Yin Beast. And as expected of a fierce Yin Beast, immediately after being born, it tried to eat him.

Unfortunately for the beast, Krune was prepared, incapacitating it using the Cloud Whale immediately, causing its limbs to stop working. He had been working with the Yin Beast corpses, researching their body enough to know all their weakness.

It was still able to use its head, though it wasn't able to utter a word. Krune placed it on the man that he had been nurturing just to increase the potency of his flesh to the Yin Beast to further its growth.

That was something already present in the bandit boss' records. All he did was improve it up a notch, watching the scene of the hatchling Yin Beast slithering with all its might before beginning to eat up the man, who had been sedated enough to not even realize that he was being devoured.

He was put to sleep beforehand and hence, hadn't witnessed the sight firsthand. Once it finished devouring the man, its size had increased partially. However, it had taken a week to finish devouring him.

Upon inspecting its growth, Krune fed it another man. Laid on the berth nearby was another criminal that he had captured and brought during the night. He constantly brought in more and more criminals, watching the number of Yin Beasts continue to increase in numbers.

But no matter what, they were unable to do anything. After all, he had amputated their arms and legs, preventing them from doing anything, chaining them to the ceiling as they dangled like cattle ready for slaughter.

If not for their abundant vitality, they would have long died to the abuse. Every month, a new Yin Beast would join their ranks. Thankfully for him, a Yin Beast reached maturity in six months, a staggering growth rate.

Beyond that, only its intelligence continued to grow. Eighteen months after arriving at the cave, Krune left one day and returned only after three weeks had passed, haggard, but his eyes were bright.

Nothing unexpected happened after that as days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months.

Eventually, the day finally approached when he had been at the bandit cave for 21 months. "It's finally done!"