The pungent smell, the buzz of flies, and the maggots crawling on the beastfolk corpse made Lidien somehow smile.

After the corpse was delivered into the Rift, he had it taken to his new personal laboratory--a cabin he'd commanded the soldiers to build in the free space below the floating island at the edge of the Rift.

Lidien walked towards the dissection table. Upon it still lay a female beastfolk, her body opened from chest to groin. One of her legs was cut off at the waist, her organs were already gone, and was placed with the other mutilated corpses stacked against the wall.

Cracking his neck, he touched the female beastfolk corpse, giving him the same information because of his Echoes of the Flesh.

A small amount of Necrotic Essence crawled to his hands, its emerald dim light crawling over his skin till it sunk deeper without leaving his arms.

"My understanding of Necrotic Essence is still at its Middle Stage, still slow at absorbing it..."

Lidien shook his head, as a helpless smile touched his face.

"Yet, my Blood Essence is still in the Initial Stage, even though I'm always using it..."

He then looked towards the large bucket full of blood... the blood of the beastfolk.

Lidien had tried to taste it at first after collecting it, even became familiar with its rustic smell, yet, like the Book with the Human Skin, he couldn't understand why his Blood Essence understanding was not ascending.

"Damn it... do I really need to carry out a massacre every time just to understand blood? like the memory of the Book did?"

A laugh suddenly escaped his mouth.

"Maybe that's why the Blessed of Death are being hunted in the World..."

Without much to do, and to maximize his time, Lidien sat beside the dissecting table and entered his Dreamflow.

The same ocean of verve reflecting the starry skies met him, and, as he walked towards his Crimson Shard, hundreds of grey wisps orbited his Shard, and not the rune.

Lidien touched a wisp, and a fragmented memory of the ghost flooded him...

"What a way to gather information... Kill and capture the ghost... even my Echoes of the Flesh is only useful for gathering information from a corpse."

Then, a funny thought made him laugh by himself as he stared at the orbiting souls and remembered the corpses outside.

"If only I could transfer these souls to the dead body, making my own army of the de--"

Lidien stopped, and walked back and forth tapping his forehead.

"Isn't that the same as Resurrection... what the God of Death did to me?"

He then sighed, and smiled.

"But it's not possible for them to truly live, since their Soul Shards are already destroyed, and only Soul Essence remains..."

Lidien giggled, then it turned to laughter... unconsciously activating his Blood Form as his excitement reached its peak.

"Then, I don't need to resurrect them! I could just use the Soul Essence as a fuel to animate the dead body... making myself a Necromancer from the games!"

After a few seconds of laughing, Lidien stopped, panting with glee.

"I need to thank the Death God for making me use its three pathways simultaneously... yet, it's hard to advance since I need all of them to improve equally... and as long as my Path of Blood remains in its Initial Stage, I will be trapped in the Dawn Stage."

Lidien then stared at the runes engraved in his shard, looking at the Necrotic Essence Rune now glowing bright emerald, waiting for that one enlightenment to advance it to its Peak Stage.

After a few hours inside the Dreamflow internalizing, he was pulled out of it, waking in the cabin in what felt like just a blink of an eye.

Lidien could actually enter the Dreamflow anytime he wanted using his unique method, however, since the risks of brain damage are higher, he didn't dare risk it unless it was important and he really needed it for brainstorming or to monitor his advancement.

As he stood, he stared at the female beastfolk.

"Absorbing Necrotic Essence all the time without understanding the meaning behind its existence is like filling a jar full of water... useless and a waste of time."

Lidien sat beside the corpse against the wall, disregarding its pungent smell, the flies, and the maggots... as he tried to live among the dead, trying to understand what it is to be a corpse.

Hours passed as he sat among the dead, meditating and observing in silence. The light faded, and night fell. Then, just as steadily, day returned.

Without eating, without drinking, just there... sitting.

He watched the maggots slowly crawl, tunneling into the soft tissue of the corpse... decaying the flesh rapidly, and as the maggots morphed into flies, they would lay eggs on the corpse, hatch... then repeat the process... turning the corpse into a recyclable matter, some of which transformed into Necrotic Essence.

The Cycle of the Maggot's Life revealed its truth... that flesh is merely a vessel for the soul, and that everything, without exception, eventually turns to dust.

And, as he accepted that eventually he would die, like the corpses surrounding him, he felt a knot in his soul loosen... making his dead-looking eyes shine bright emerald... as he advanced his Necrotic Essence Rune to Rank 1 Peak Stage.

A smirk touched his face as he looked towards the maggots disdainfully.

"Hmph... I won't let a maggot decide when this flesh rots... as long as my Soul Shard exists."

As his eyes glanced at the dead corpse, another piece of information aside from its name flooded his mind.

The corpse now not only included the name of each part, or the name of the race, it also told him what kind of grade it was, how sturdy, and how useful... from poor to supreme grade.

"What a great way to collect parts for my army of the dead... hope I can make a Death Knight with it."

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