It turned out that Extracting SoulStar Fragments from a living Awakened – a Higher Lifeform, at that – was far more difficult than Michael imagined.
After the Berserker Chieftain and the War Priestess granted him special permission to access the library network, they left for an emergency meeting. Kraft Viton joined the emergency meeting as well once he finished channeling several droplets of Psyche Obliteration into the war criminals of Dark Heavens.
He was worried that something might happen to Michael so he took extra precautions for the worst-case scenario. Afterward, Kraft Viton left Michael alone as well. He joined the emergency meeting to plan their next steps against Dark Heavens.
Left alone, Michael felt a little bit weird at first. He was in an underground prison with hundreds of criminals who were all extremely dangerous and Higher Lifeforms. None of them was below the Lowest-rank of the 4th Tier. Fortunately, Michael didn't have to worry about anything. Most criminals were confined, and their bodies were broken beyond repair. Even if they wanted to kill Michael, they wouldn't even be able to lift a spoon.
"I wish I could remove all of your Soultraits and SoulStar Fragments. With every single one of you here, I would definitely be able to upgrade Extraction to a 7-Star Soultrait!" Michael mumbled. Unfortunately, he didn't have access to the prison cells of the other criminals.
In the first place, it would be suspicious if he opened the cells of the other prisoners. A notification would appear in the log, which could be checked by the War Priestess and the Berserker Chieftain at any time. Therefore, all Michael could do was spend some quality time with the seven crippled suicide squad members.
Michael first thought that it would be a simple task to extract the SoulStar Fragments and Soultraits within them. It had never been difficult to extract them from the dead, after all. But it was the complete opposite in case of his latest targets, which made sense.
Upon starting to use Extraction on Mihal as his first target, Michael noticed that the essence of Mihal's entire being was trying to fight against Extraction. Despite his body being crippled beyond repair and his mental defenses getting crushed even before it could be rebuilt, Mihal's existence put up a fight against the invasion and power of Extraction.
Michael used several layers of Enhancement to strengthen Extraction as the tendrils of Extraction entered Mihal's body through his mouth, nose, and ears. Mihal began to writhe in pain immediately. He screamed aloud and began thrashing his body around. To his misfortune, Mihal was chained to a chair that had been reinforced and firmly attached to the ground. There was no way for Mihal to escape Michael's Extraction. All he could do was struggle and scream.
Meanwhile, the remaining six members of the suicide squad began to shiver. The crystal chains that restricted their movements and the circulation of their energy clinked loudly as the war criminal twitched uncontrollably. They had all been trained to endure suffering all their lives so they had been taught that physical pain was nothing but an illusion. But now, upon hearing their comrade's gut-wrenching cries, they couldn't fathom what kind of torture tactics Michael used to make Mihal scream that loudly
The corner of Michael's lips curled upward when he saw the violently twitching war criminals seated around Mihal. Though he broke into a sweat while fighting against the remnants of Mihal's existence and was struggling against Extraction, he noticed that he was slowly gaining an advantage. Mihal's mind and body had already given up against the highly penetrative force of Michael's Extraction. Therefore, Michael could extract Mihal's lifeforce and the bits of energy that had accumulated within his body to further weaken him and put an end to his already insignificant and miserable struggle.
'How can he accumulate energy with those tempered crystal chains? Shouldn't they restrain his usage of energy, and deprive him entirely?' Michael wondered before unleashing more tendrils of energy to invade the remaining six war criminals.
They began to scream, writhe in pain, and fight desperately against the invading force. However, struggling was all they could do. Their minds were already weakened and they couldn't use the bits of energy inside them to fight against the invasion of Extraction either.
'They're all collecting energy traces. Did they learn a technique that allows their bodies to generate energy out of nowhere? If not for that, how else would they be able to collect energy while they're in a state like this? … That means they could have accumulated enough energy to trigger their suicide mechanisms had I not observed the traces of energy within them… Good thing I have Extraction.'
Michael made sure to devour all of the energy traces within them. Afterward, he continued to drain their lifeforce. He didn't kill them but he weakened them as much as possible to keep their future struggles at bay. Dealing with Mihal was already annoying enough. Michael didn't want to spend the next few days struggling to fight against the last remains of a Higher Lifeform's natural resistance. That was a hassle and way too arduous.
In the next few days, Michael didn't leave the underground prison chamber even once. He couldn't leave, either way. However, Michael didn't sleep, and he ate much less than usual. All he ingested was Energy Nourishing Pills to replenish his energy storage as often as possible.
Michael spent most of his time using the Power of Extraction on the War Criminals. They killed civilians, children at that, and didn't deserve nice treatment. If anything, they deserved the worst possible treatment. Their screams rang through Michael's ears but there was no remorse or pity in his eyes. His actions remained as merciless as before as well.
The prison chamber was void of furniture and there was no security camera inside the prison cell as well. Michael was left alone with the seven war criminals, who had grown much weaker over the course of the last few days. By now, even their Souls had grown much weaker. There was no natural resistance left.
The first thing Michael had tried was to extract SoulStar Fragments from the Awakened. Under normal circumstances, Michael would extract both SoulStar Fragments and Soultrait Symbols simultaneously. But since the Soultrait Symbols ended up being Starless or 1-Star, Micahel felt like he could first extract the Soultrait's SoulStar Fragments before removing the Awakened's Soultraits.
It worked just like he wanted. The only downside was that it took way too long to extract SoulStar Fragments from a living target. Fortunately, that was something Michael could solve as his skill of handling living targets improved. The natural resistance of the targets decreased over time whereas Michael's proficiency and efficiency increased.
At the end of the first day, Michael ended up with a pile of 634 SoulStar Fragments. That was a lot less than he would obtain from killing a Higher Lifeform and extracting their Soultrait Symbol and SoulStar Fragments straight from the corpse, but there was also an advantage. Michael didn't wring out Mihal dry. It was just the beginning.
On the second day, Michael extracted 1859 SoulStar Fragments, and in the morning of the third day Mihal died as his Soultrait Symbols were ripped out of his Soul. Mihal had already been on the verge of death, and the backlash of losing his Soultraits in such a painful manner had been enough to kill the young man. Fortunately enough, Michael had been able to extract a total of 2734 SoulStar Fragments from Mihal before he extracted both Second Skin and Insert.
"2734 SoulStar Fragments and two Soultrait Symbols in roughly 50 hours. From a single Tier-4 Awakened… That's decent," Michael mumbled to himself in satisfaction. He realized that the droprate of Soultrait Symbols was much higher when the Awakened was still alive. That was some crucial piece of information Michael could make use of in the near future.
However, for now he had to spend his time extracting more Soultrait Symbols and SoulStar Fragments from the remaining six war criminals. They were crippled and defenseless against the terrifying power of Michael's Extraction. However, even better was that Michael obtained the energy influx from killing Mihal. The energy influx of a Higher Lifeform swamped Michael. The energy ravaged his body and nearly caused his skin to burst. Therefore, Michael was forced to enter the Origin Expanse for a while to not suffer permanent damages to his body and War rune. He made use of the advantageous time dilation to assimilate bits of the energy influx to refine his body, mind, and War Rune.
Since his skill of practicing Sacred Rectification, Pandemonium's Requiem, and Caseurium Menta had increased over the past few weeks, Michael could properly handle the energy influx of a Tier-4 Awakened in two days. He digested it all and returned to the underground prison where he began to extract the SoulStar Fragments and the Soultrait Symbol of the next war criminal – another Lowest-rank Tier-4 Awakened.
This time, Michael spent only 24 hours extracting 2794 SoulStar Fragments and a Soultrait. He delivered the final blow by ripping the Awakened's Soultrait out of his Soul, once again providing himself with a tremendous energy influx.
Over the course of the next 10 days, Michael switched between extracting SoulStar Fragments and Soultrait Symbols and jumping into the Origin Expanse to spend most of his time refining his body, mind, and War Rune.
He advanced much faster than he could have ever hoped for and smiled foolishly when the last of the seven war criminals fell dead to the ground. It was a Lowest Tier-5 Lord, who'd been an Elder at the Silvermoon University. Michael didn't really care who or what he was. All he had to know was that the Elder was a traitor of the human race, and partially at fault for the death of hundreds of prodigies and millions of innocent citizens. That was enough to know that his death was justified and that there was no need for Michael to feel remorse.
If anything, Michael felt ecstatic. After all, he was able to procure seven massive energy influxes from six Tier-4 Awakened and a Tier-5 Lord just like that.
'This is already a decent prize for the help I provided. I'm a fucking Tycoon!'
