"What the hell are you doing, mister?" Elinor asked, eyeing her unidentified ally's bizarre actions.
They were literally standing in an ankle-high pool of blood, surrounded by a pile of corpses—yet somehow, his actions were unsettling enough to make both her and the fanatics pause.
Apex Ace glanced up, unfazed. "I'm collecting it so we can torture it together later," he lied smoothly.
In reality, he had no intention of sharing. He needed this one alive—long enough to extract the secrets of the Samsara Cult's curse possession art or whatever trick they were using to recover the curse energy of higher-tier curse cores because of which their hosts were more sustainable and long-lasting. Instead of constantly hunting for new bodies, they could recycle their hosts' curse cores after every battle.