Ascension of the Dark Seraph-Chapter 235: Moral Corruption

Lucivar was down on the ground doing push-ups along with the other academy hunters.

Due to last night's celebratory party, a lot of them were late—and could barely keep up with the usual intensity of their morning exercise. Even now at this moment, there were already ten academy hunters who passed out or vomited.

And as the morning exercise continues, more follow the same path.

It wasn't a problem for Lucivar though as he barely drank any due to people trying to talk with him.

'What happened to Bakar?' He glanced to the side—and saw Bakar, who bore traces of almost healed bruises. Clearly, the bruises were new and he rushed to heal them. But then again, Lucivar didn't care about that, he did care about one thing though, 'Did the healer already come back? I'm still sore all over and needed some healing,'

Noting mentally that he'd ask Bakar about it, Lucivar averted his gaze back down.

Now that tonight's break has come to pass, it was time to focus again.

At this moment, he needed a decent number of golden spheres.

Since Bob already confirmed that Caldaros is a Chrysalis-rank Hybrid, the need for him to advance to the next realm became paramount. If he couldn't reach the Chrysalis rank before the tournament starts, he'd certainly lose against Caldaros.

But the question was—how?

He couldn't take on another mission and there were no factions that he could exploit.

'Zibbo… I could still use him to lure some Hybrids from the Lincoln Gang,' Lucivar thought, recalling that he still has his second Vestal who he could use. But there was a problem, 'I don't know if I can get out of the academy, not when practically everyone was paying attention to me'

Just a quick scan of the place showed that several academy hunters were looking at him.

Or at least, glanced a him as he and Mirel became the pride of the academy hunters.

And even if he managed to slip out without anyone noticing, he still hasn't recovered fully.

His ether was already full again but his stamina was completely drained.

Just doing a thousand push-ups in a row was tiring for him, and as a Hybrid, that's quite worrying.

'Regardless, I need to get out and harvest more golden spheres. For now…' Lucivar turned to the other side, at Leandra who was focusing on the push-ups. Her expression was tight, she seemed to have a lot of things in her mind. 'I need to learn what and how the Morality Constellation works,'

Out of the four constellations from the Heart of Mischief Nakshatras, he unlocked three of them already.

The Truth Constellation gave him the ability to see through lies—and the Chaos Constellation allowed him to summon a beast from the Labyrinth of Arcane Menagerie through a sacrifice. Now, the Morality Constellation was unlocked.

And Gandr said this constellation has an ability called Moral Contagion.

It basically alters the morality of those around him or someone he targets.

As for how it worked, Gandr couldn't say for sure.

But Lucivar was quite sure that Gandr only chose not to tell, wanting him to find out on its own.

'Sorry Leandra, but I'll see how it works on you. You'll be my guinea pig,' Lucivar smirked inside.

Lucivar's heart made a loud, echoing beat as he activated the Morality Constellation.

Unlike the Chaos Constellation, activating this one doesn't cause him any obvious dizziness or pain, it was activated without any side effects. However—Lucivar wasn't naïve enough to believe—that it would be the case.

Surely, there will be side effects, and he needs to pay close attention to them.

Swish!

A blob of emerald light seeped out of his chest.

For a second, it hovered right in front of him before its light flickered a couple of times.

Soon, the beautiful emerald light shifted into red and once that happened, the blob of light cuts through the air. Before Lucivar could realize what was happening, the blob already seeped into Leandra's body, its energy spread and coated her entire body.

Lucivar's eyes were glued onto her, ready in case anything bad happened.

Under his watchful gaze, Leandra paused mid-track while doing the push-up—and slowly turned to her right. She seemed to be looking at something—or someone. Lucivar followed the direction of her gaze and noticed that she was looking at Ravenna.

"Get up and run two hundred laps!" Fabio's voice rang as the academy hunters stood up.

Attune to her surroundings despite her focus being elsewhere, Leandra stood up.

She dusted her hands before she suddenly pivoted her body.

Pushing aside the academy hunters near her, Leandra headed towards Ravenna with a cold face.

Lucivar watched her walk through the crowd—and once he realized where she was going, he instantly ran towards her, "Get out of the way," He barked, pushing through the sea of academy hunters while he kept track of Leandra.

No matter what her intentions were for approaching Ravenna, it must not be something good.

After all, she was under the influence of his sinister power.

Just as Leandra was about to reach Ravenna, who was still oblivious about her approach, Lucivar was able to reach Leandra in time and wrapped his hand around her waist. For a second, Leandra turned to him with a sharp glare.

But seeing his face, she softened a bit.

Lucivar, on the other hand, saw a concentration of ether in Leandra's right hand.

'Was she about to attack Ravenna?' He thought inside.

Noticing them, Ravenna raised an eyebrow, "Leandra? Lucivar? What are you doing?"

As those questions slipped out of her lips, Ravenna's eyes trailed down and saw Lucivar's arm wrapped around Leandra's waist. In the next second, Leandra's face—twisted hideously. She turned to Ravenna, her lips partly open, "You fu-"

Before she could even say anything, Lucivar already covered her mouth with his other hand.

"Nothing," Lucivar smiled acutely as he pulled Leandra away.

"Matter of fact, I need to talk with Leandra about something so we'll take our leave," He added.

Seeing both of them pulling away with Lucivar whispering something in Leandra's ears while Leandra kept a fierce glare at Ravenna, disappearing into the crowd, Ravenna exhaled sharply—as she could not believe what she was seeing.

'I pulled back a little and he's already doing this?' Ravenna thought in disbelief. 'He's really petty,'

Meanwhile, Lucivar was finally able to pull Leandra before the exercise started.

Keeping his hand firm on Leandra's wrist, he forced her to jog and act normal.

"How are you feeling?" He asked while keeping his gaze straight.

"How do you think I feel?" Leandra answered with a sharp edge, implying he should already know. "I know you've got something going on with Ravenna, I can tell from how she touched you. She must've been the one who betrayed me"

Upon hearing this, Lucivar frowned.

'Did she find out that Ravenna was the one who betrayed her that night? He thought, surprised that Leandra was able to reach that conclusion. 'No, if that's the case, she would already confronted Ravenna long before today. So that means, is it the Morality Constellation's doings?'

'But how did she reach this state?' Lucivar pondered further, he needed more information.

"You were fine a minute ago, so what changed?" Lucivar probed.

"Of course, it's because o—" Leandra began, but her words faltered mid-sentence. A frown crept onto her face, her expression darkening. "I do not know what's going on, but I suddenly feel… angry. Just stop asking me questions. I'm not in the mood"

From her answer alone, Lucivar could vaguely tell what was going on.

'She didn't know about Ravenna's part but she suspected it, maybe she saw me and Ravenna being too close or something. And the anger, it must be the Morality Constellation—tampering with her, but will there always be anger?' He pondered inside.

It was then that Gandr finally emerged.

"The Morality Constellation increased the tendency of the target to do morally bad things, "Gandr said, staring at Leandra with interest. "Given enough time, the target would certainly do bad things. But, the Morality Constellation could hasten the process by bleeding your current most—prominent negative emotion into the target"

As soon as Lucivar heard that, his eyes widened in realization.

Leandra's behavior clicked instantly.

Under normal circumstances, Leandra would never attack her family.

Consistently, she always mentioned to Lucivar that family sticks and supports each other.

She would never do anything to harm the others.

However, under the Morality Constellation's influence, her tendency to attack the others increased.

Then, Lucivar's most dominant negative emotion, which was anger, bled into her—intertwining with her thoughts. From the looks of it, Ravenna was already in her mind so the surge of anger drove her to attack Ravenna almost instantly.

Had Lucivar not intercepted her, things would've turned out really bad.

It was fortunate that he sensed the danger and moved.

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'Now, the question was how long Leandra would stay like that?' Lucivar thought inside.

He was pleased that he now had an ability that could help dictate others' actions—such a handy ability would certainly make future plans easier to achieve but he needed to know that this wasn't permanent or else he was going to need to use it sparingly.

For now, all he could do was watch Leandra and see how it progressed in her.

As he followed Leandra from behind, however, an idea came to mind.

'I can use this…' Lucivar smirked devilishly, managing to think of a plan to gain the rest of the golden spheres to reach the next rank. 'I can't kill anyone in public or I'll be imprisoned again so doesn't that mean I just need to create a situation where I could kill in public?'

Nodding his head, Lucivar continued the exercise as he polished his plan.

Later that night.

Ravenna heard a knock and went over to open the door.

Standing outside was Lucivar who surprisingly had a wide smile on his face.

"What is it?" Ravenna asked, failing to hide her excitement from her tone.

"I asked Fabio to grant me a request since he made me do all those chores even though I'm one of the participants in the tournament," Lucivar started, leaning against the doorframe. "I got him to let me and anyone I brought take the day off tomorrow. I'm asking if you want to go out tomorrow"

"Just the two of us?" Ravenna asked again, this time, she didn't even try to hide her excitement.

However, in the next second, her face fell.

"Nope, I asked the others too," Lucivar shrugged dismissively. "I don't know who among them would come but I'm pretty certain Leandra and Mirel would come. What? Do you expect me to take you out or something?"

"Yes, but now…" Ravenna leaned forward. "I can tell you're up to something,"

"Me? Up to something? Come on," Lucivar smiled wryly. "I'm not that kind of person,"

"You're exactly that kind of person, Lucivar…" She shook her head helplessly.