"What a foolish question."
Adam knew the answer before he even asked it. Of course he could equip their talents; [Equip] didn't discriminate between human or monster.
A corpse was a corpse.
His question had been nothing but a whisper, intended to ease the edges of his conscience.
Instead, it made him feel like a hypocrite.
"I have a goal to achieve," he said quietly, as if reminding himself, "and I shouldn't hesitate because of situations like this."
The women were completely gone and irreversibly dead.
There was no sin in checking if their talents could still be of use.
Not when the world they lived in offered no mercy for the weak.
Adam approached the first corpse, crouching beside her.
The woman looked to be in her mid-thirties, her body still trembling faintly from over stimulation.
He didn't hesitate as he reached forward and activated [Connect].
The world shifted instantly.
A flameless orb glowed faintly inside the woman's chest, and above her head, the once-bright essence nodes were disconnected and hollow.
Adam placed his hand gently over the left side of her sternum.
A soft pulse of light flickered, followed by the familiar chime of a notification:
[Do you want to equip: Cultivation Talent (F)?]
He stared at it for a moment, his expression calm but faintly disappointed.
"An F-rank," he said softly.
"Figures."
With her age, the fact she had a low cultivation talent wasn't that suprising, rather It explained everything.
Why she had fallen here.
Why she hadn't stood a chance.
Then he turned to the second corpse.
Repeating the process.
[Do you want to equip: Cultivation Talent (F)?]
Seeing the same notification he dismissed the notification and released [Connect], letting the light fade from his eyes.
Adam only had two slots, and both already had special talents equipped. He couldn't sacrifice those for a cultivation talent, especially an F-rank one.
When he finally stood again, both bodies lay side by side, pale and motionless in the dim light seeping through the cracks of the hut.
Adam looked down at them, with heavy thoughts.
"They both had higher cultivation talents than me," he murmured, "and yet they met a cruel end."
His expression became thoughtful.
"This just goes to show… weakness is a sin, where the only punishment is death."
He shook his head, dismissing the thought before it could linger.
With deliberate care, he bent down and lifted the bodies, one over each shoulder.
Despite everything, he didn't let them fall carelessly.
Checking their corpses for talents might be seen as desecration by some, but Adam didn't see it that way.
And even if it was, he wasn't inhuman enough to deny them a proper farewell.
As he stepped out of the hut, the faint light from the rift's false sun hit him and so did a voice, trembling with disbelief.
"It's not possible."
Adam turned his head.
Standing a few meters away in the tall grass were three men, half-hidden by the golden stalks.
Their faces were frozen in shock, disbelief, grief, and something deeper, doubt.
They weren't looking at him. They were staring at what he carried.
Adam's gaze softened faintly as he recognized the expression.
The hollow eyes, the trembling lips, the quiet denial that clung to every breath.
What a familiar sight.
He'd seen that same expression countless times over the past nine years—
every time he looked in a mirror.
It was the face of someone breaking under the weight of despair.
****
Agnes and Favor.
Adam had learned their names from the three men who had appeared after the slaughter.
He also learned a saddening truth as well.
This was supposed to be their last rift.
Agnes had met a man and was planning to settle down after one final run.
Favor, on the other hand, was two weeks pregnant.
She'd wanted to save just enough money to raise her child safely before retiring.
This was meant to be it, the final run before she left the dangers of the rifts behind.
But rifts were never predictable.
What was meant to be a routine sweep through an unranked level 1 rift turned into a nightmare.
They were ambushed, by dozens of elite male goblins, far more organized than they should've been.
Normally, elites roamed alone, not in coordinated packs.
The ambush was so sudden and unnatural, that the two women never stood a chance.
Getting captured before the others could even react.
Now their leader — Jerome — knelt beside the lifeless bodies, his eyes bloodshot and wet with grief.
The two men beside him, the heavyset one and the slender one, mirrored his expression, faces locked between sorrow and quiet rage.
"It wasn't supposed to end like this," Jerome whispered hoarsely, his voice breaking as he stared at the motionless faces of Agnes and Favor.
Their corpses lay where Adam had placed them, side by side, their features at peace for the first time since entering the rift.
Since the Group they belonged to had arrived, Adam decided it was time to step back.
He had already done what they couldn't.
He had avenged them.
Jerome's eyes, red and glistening, slowly rose to meet Adam's.
His voice trembled, but the words burned.
"I hope their deaths were painful."
He wasn't speaking of the women.
He meant the goblins.
The three of them, Jerome, the heavy man, and the slender one had seen the aftermath. The mangled bodies of monsters scattered across the settlement, limbs torn apart, blood soaking the ground.
They already knew Adam was no ordinary person.
What Jerome wanted to know was how the creatures had died.
Adam met his gaze.
His emerald eyes glinted faintly in the rift's light, it was cold, sharp, and full of quiet certainty.
Then he turned his back, walking away slowly.
Over his shoulder, his voice drifted through the air.
"It was."
The words hung there for a moment before he vanished, activating [Rapid E] and disappearing in a blur of motion.
The three men didn't react in shock.
They'd already guessed, anyone who could massacre an entire goblin colony alone had to be at least a Martial Expert.
Jerome stared into the direction Adam had gone, his voice low and sincere.
"Thank you."
The heavyset man, eyes still swollen from crying, turned to him.
"Leader… what now?"
Jerome was silent for a long time, his gaze fixed on the two women who'd fought and fallen beside him for years.
Finally, he exhaled.
"Now we mourn," he said softly.
"We mourn for those we've lost."
****
Adam was already gone, he was nothing but a streak of motion cutting across the plains.
Adam could understand their grief, but he couldn't share in it.
There was no room for mourning in his world, no time to stop for tears.
"I'm sure they'll be okay," he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
His eyes flickered faintly as [Connect] remained active.
The talent acted like a radar and with it he had mapped the nearby terrain in his mind.
Noting down informations like, life signatures, strength levels, species, even approximate age based on the intensity of the soul flame.
And their were no threats or monsters strong enough to be a problem for Jerome and the rest.
[Connect] had made it possible to read these details instinctively, so it wasn't difficult for him.
Adam increased his pace, wind howling against his ears as the golden grass blurred past him.
His eyes burning with quiet determination.
He wasn't done.
Not even close.
****
[Please Guys I'm soliciting for reviews and power stones. I know it seems too early but it is the only way I can stay consistent…. Thank you for the support.]