Ken and Nijin walked out of the office. The alarm was still ringing. The red alarm lights and the blood around were in eerie harmony with each other. The Kage had created a pyramid of corpses and was sitting at its peak. While he was holding his scythe in his hand, he was cleaning the blood on him with his other hand. The Kage's eyes glowed with a dark and demonic brightness.
"Guys, you missed all the fun," Kage said, laughing evilly. "That's why I don't like research. Killing is more fun."
Ken and Nijin paused for a moment at Kage's state. The Kage's dark energy made the air around them heavy. Taking a deep breath, Ken stepped forward and approached Kage.
"Kage, this is no fun. Shadow's plans could destroy Etheria. We need to stop that ritual," Ken said firmly.
Kage stood up, thrusting his scythe into the ground. "Ritual? If we have to shed more blood to find them, that's fine with me," he replied.
Nijin could feel the Kage's anger in the shadows. "You're even more dangerous than Shadow," he said, his voice shaking.
A dark smile appeared on Kage's face. "Dangerous? If you think I'm just dangerous, you haven't seen enough blood," he said.
Ken noticed that Kage turned even darker after those words. "Kage, this anger will consume you. We must work together to stop the ritual," he said hopefully.
Kage ignored Ken's words and walked towards the bodies around him. "If you want to see more, I can show you," he said, picking up his scythe again and heading towards the corpses. His scythe was covered in blood, and there was a dark glint in his eyes.
Kage leaned over one of the corpses and, with a wild swing of his scythe, cut off its head. Blood splattered everywhere and the Kage's face was covered in blood. "This is just the beginning," he whispered with a devilish smile.
Ken and Nijin were horrified by the Kage's brutality. "Kage, this path will lead you into darkness of no return," Nijin warned.
"I find my way in this darkness. I grow stronger with each kill," Kage said as he stabbed his scythe into the next corpse. With each killing move, the energy around him grew darker.
"Bloodshed is the only way to gain power. You must understand that," Kage said, pointing his scythe at Ken. He swung his scythe again and consumed the soul inside another corpse. Meanwhile, a dark aura appeared around him and Kage's power increased even more.
Ken and Nijin discussed the situation, observing the dark energy concentrating around the Kage. While Kage was swinging his scythe wildly, Nijin whispered to Ken, "Kage is many times stronger than us. I don't like this situation. We can't do anything in our current sealed state. We must find a way to become stronger like Kage."
Ken fell into thought after Nijin's words. What is the way to access the power of Kage? He suddenly remembered one of the ancient writings in the temple of time: "Drawing time energy from every item contained in time is one of the other ways to increase the production of time energy." Although this method was not preferred, it was the only way to increase time energy since it was sealed.
Nijin's situation was similar. Just as the time energy in Ken was little, the void energy in Nijin was also very little. With his current power, it was very difficult for him to open a gate to nothingness with his nothingness sword and absorb nothingness energy. But he knew that Kage should not be left alone on his dark journey. Nijin began searching for ways to increase his void energy. While thinking about how he could increase Ken's time energy, he decided that he should follow a similar path to increase his void energy.
They decided to leave the office and leave for training. "Let's meet at the bar in a month," they said, and each of them started running in opposite directions.