BLOOD MUTANT SYSTEM.-Chapter 435: CH: CLEANSED.

At long last, the Ethisian High Ruler Enor had managed to accomplish something he once believed to be useless, pointless, impossible, even.

For many long days, the Ethisian had plotted relentlessly. He schemed, revised, and planned with painstaking precision. His strategy revolved around a single gamble: capturing the Granians’ Blood Mutants and using them as leverage—his ultimate bargaining chip. Not to hold it against the Granians, but to instead use it as a bargaining tool to convince the Ethisian Blood Mutants to rejoin the fight.

At first, even the Ethisian High Ruler had doubted the plan.

If it failed, Enor would die. Not might, would.

That fear was precisely why he had approached their Blood Mutants alongside his strongest High Grades. He knew they wouldn’t be enough to kill them... but at least his death would be legendary.

’Thank the gods it didn’t come to that.’

Enor let out a slow breath of relief when the Ethisian Blood Mutants finally agreed to fight alongside them. But relief was short-lived. Something else had surfaced. Something no amount of planning could fix.

"You brought us tainted, turned humans," the man said coldly as he approached Jim, a Blood Blade forming effortlessly in his hand. "Creatures who’ve somehow overwhelmed their own DNA."

The blade hummed faintly with power.

"If we don’t purge it," he continued, "the Granian Blood Mutants will use it against us."

Jim froze. His heart pounded violently in his chest as fear crept into his veins. Get rid of it...? What did that mean? Was he the "it"?

"Do everything in your power to brace yourself," the man warned. With a flick of his fingers, Jim’s body lifted into the air as the Ethisian Blood Mutant manipulated the blood inside him.

Jim gasped.

Like a body undergoing an exorcism, he floated upward until he was eye-level with the Ethisian Blood Mutant. Their gazes locked briefly—cold authority meeting raw terror.

The Blood Blade rose, hovering over Jim’s chest.

Thoughts spiralled wildly through Jim’s mind. Every instinct screamed at him to fight—to run—but he crushed the urge.

’Even if I escape... how far would I get? And what would they do to me if they caught me again?’

"Brace yourself."

The man’s eyes ignited with a furious crimson glow as pure, untainted, and intense blood energy poured from his body. On the opposite side, his female counterpart raised her hands, her body reacting in kind.

Both of them radiated brilliant red energy, power surging around them in steady, controlled waves.

It was...beautiful.

Both the Granians and the Ethisians watched in silent awe.

’So this is what blood energy is supposed to feel like,’ Anya realized.

Compared to this—calm, fluid, refined—the energy she knew felt wild. Chaotic. Violent. Ace’s, Cherry’s. Jim’s. Even her own.

"Brace yourself," the man said once more. Then he drove the blade into Jim’s sternum.

Jim screamed.

A violent surge of blood and energy exploded within him, desperately trying to escape his body by any means possible. His pores swelled, veins bulged, and his vision burned red.

His eyes turned bloodshot.

His mouth flooded with the metallic taste of iron.

His nose smelled nothing but blood.

His ears heard nothing except the agonizing chaos tearing him apart from the inside.

"Now," the man said calmly.

His female counterpart responded instantly.

Waves of crimson energy poured from her body, enveloping Jim completely. The glowing, sparkling rays seeped into him, soothing yet forceful.

Then it happened.

A darker, thicker energy erupted from Jim, one that was corrupt, vile, and hungry. It clashed violently with the woman’s power.

Light against darkness.

The struggle sent a chill through both Blood Mutants. This power, faint yet unmistakably malignant, was far beyond what they had anticipated. Its insatiable bloodlust made their thoughts spiral.

But what terrified them most was one simple truth.

This energy was borrowed.

’If a turned Blood Mutant carried this much darkness...How powerful was its source?’

"This power...!" the woman cried out, strain visible on her face. Tendrils burst from her body, anchoring her in place as her hands shifted fully into their Blood Mutant forms.

"...I can’t handle all of it alone," she gritted out. "You...!"

Her gaze snapped to Anya.

"Place your hands on my back. Use only Eneraflux. Hurry."

Anya didn’t hesitate.

She pressed her palms against the woman’s back and released her Eneraflux. Her energy flowed outward, merging with the woman’s crimson aura.

Anya’s eyes flared. Her hair lifted as if caught in an unseen wind. Her body slowly levitated.

As the man pushed the blade deeper into Jim’s chest, blood gathered at the wound, coiling around him like vines wrapping an ancient tree.

Bit by bit, Jim’s dark energy was overwhelmed—dissolving until nothing remained. But it didn’t stop with him.

From behind, the woman’s tendrils suddenly pierced into Anya’s body. Another tendril struck her chest, repeating the same brutal process.

Anya cried out.

Minutes passed like hours.

Then...silence.

Jim and Anya collapsed to the ground as they were finally released. The Ethisians stepped back once the dark presence was no longer detectable. The "ritual" was done. The once turned Blood Acolytes were free from the dark energy that resided in them.

"Thank you, Eden...Eve," Enor said, bowing deeply. "I never imagined the Granians used such unconventional methods to infuse Eneraflux and blood energy into these poor souls."

"The Granians had nothing to do with this," Eden replied grimly. "These two were turned by another Blood Mutant. A powerful one who’s dabbling in dark Blood Magic. But even that strength isn’t entirely theirs."

Her eyes narrowed.

"There’s something far more sinister beneath it."

"I...I feel..." Jim staggered upright, clutching his chest. "Different. I can’t explain it, but...I don’t feel like I did a few minutes ago."

"Neither do I," Anya said softly.

They looked at each other—and noticed the changes.

The filth.

The bloodlust.

The dark aura that once clung to them.

Gone.

In its place was serenity. Balance. They even looked younger, despite both nearing their early thirties.

’Goodness.’