Slaughtering Hand

*Also called **Black Claw of Sethe** and **Slaughtering Demon Technique**.*

One of the strongest Living Secret Technique as the Demon King realm is its limit. This skill originated from Bloody King, Black Sethe's terrifying killing technique.

Black Claw of Sethe was originally something that had been dug out from ancient ruins. From the look of it, the Secret Techniques from the Secret Technique World that Garen had collected, especially those that Garen could not even see through, must have come from Ancient Ender's different level of powerful existences.

His real name was revealed after he reached level 3. Garen achieved the level increase after being stuck at level 2 by the use of his power points.

### Black Claw of Sethe

The Black Claw of Sethe has 4 levels, it’s an Ice-Poison attribute secret technique, after every level, the Ice-Poison attribute would be strengthened.

The Black Claw of Sethe had 4 levels, the first level required very specific commands, postures, and mental concentration, combined to precisely manipulate one’s vital energy and blood. Only then will one be initiated into the secret technique. According to the records on this Secret Technique, finishing level 1 would at least take 10 years.

#### First Level - Heart of Frost

"The first level of the Black Claw of Sethe can train and improve one’s heart, slowly improving the blood typing. This requires one to absorb the cold at 12 midnight every night when the temperature is at its lowest. This is to get the body used to the cold, so it does not harm the body. With proper special vital energy and blood regulation, one can achieve the manipulation of vital energy and blood, without harming the body in the process."

Garen was sitting in the cradle, putting his hands together to form some complicated hand signs, which looked like an unruly tree branche in the shape of an "L", but also somewhat like an "A". His body was seated in a cross-legged position, with one eye open and the other shut. As every minute and every second passed, Garen maintained his posture, motionless, like a statue. However, in actual fact, his hand signs were changing with each of his heartbeats. Dong… Dong… Dong… Midnight had come.

Garen’s heart suddenly vibrated, then stopped for an instant, before starting to beat at a steady, but even faster pace. He concentrated his aura and controlled the regulation of his body’s vital energy and blood carefully and precisely.

**"Level 1 of the Black Claw of Sethe - Heart of Frost"**

On the skill pane, the secret techniques tab finally changed from "none", a complicated light red symbol started to form, its shape looking similar to Garen’s first hand sign, in the shape of an "L", but also somewhat like an "A".

With the Heart of Frost modification in place, just by visualizing it, Garen could manipulate the movement of the chilliness, gathering it at his fingertips. This level of chilliness could only lower his finger temperature by about 10°C, it would only make the skin feel slightly colder at most, hence it had no extra functionality. However, Garen just took this as a form of training to control the balanced unleashing of power, and whilst unleashing this power, silently assess the origins of it.

Heart of Frost's official second level was to use the frost breath for battles, but Black Claw of Sethe's strongest point was not about its near infinite control on cold poison. Instead, it was the ability to absorb the chill from organic enemies. This Secret Technique's complete philosophy revolved similar to the Yin-Yang philosophy. In its system, all creatures were made from Yin's Coldness and Yang's warmth, and if one had mastered the Black Claw of Sethe, it would cause two special damage effects, one being the Yin Coldness' damage, and the ability to absorb opponents' Yin Coldness in their bodies.

Once the opponent's Yin Coldness was absorbed, their body's heat would not be contained, and the outer cold poison which had berserk properties would continuously destroy the balancing ability of the body. This way, it could cause immense internal injuries. If the opponent wasn't an expert who specialized in healing, they would find it extremely hard to counter such complicated moves.

On the other hand, the yin coldness absorbed by Garen could be used to strengthen Garen's Secret Technique and enhance his vitality. Following the greater realms achieved in Sethe's Secret Technique, its damage and absorption power would also be strengthened.

#### Second Level - Yin Coldness’ Hand

"Aura?" Garen did not anticipate this, that with an intent, the Heart of Frost which had reached its peak long ago actually made a breakthrough to the second realm of Sethe; Yin Coldness’ Hand. What surprised him the most was that his Standard 2 body could exude Aura already.

Aura was the combination of the mental and spiritual energy, and as he’d always had overbearing spirit but lacking mental energy, it resulted in an obnoxiously weak body which could not activate Aura. With this breakthrough to level 2, he could finally directly activate his Aura. It was a pleasant surprise.

The second level of the Insidious Poison Hand was truly focused on building up Insidious power, to the point where it could be used on the enemy. He could also gather up all the poisonous substances in his body in one place, turning it into Insidious power, a side effect of that being a better quality of sleep for Garen himself.

He walked toward the seawater slowly, step by step, his feet getting submerged, followed by his calves, then his knees, thigh, stomach, chest. In an instant, wisps of ink-black mist extended from his body, spreading everywhere with the tide. The mist was like ink, rapidly dying the water around the boy black.

The boy seemed completely oblivious to it, however, continuing to walk towards the depths of the sea. Strangely, the seawater that had reached his chest did not go any higher than that, even as he left the shallows and walked towards the depths, the water level did not budge at all, reaching his chest and no further than that.

Suddenly, there was the rippling of waves on the surface of the sea nearby, and two triangular fins rushed toward the boy from the distance. Under the mixed blue surface, there were two large blue-black giant sharks, they swam towards the boy rapidly, their fins cutting through the waves like submarines, drawing out two lines of white waves behind them.

Just as the fins swam into the black water around the boy. The boy’s weakness changed abruptly, his hands as pencil-straight as two sharp knives, stabbing down into the water hard. The two giant sharks exploded abruptly with two popping sounds, becoming two chunks of bloodied meat, the bloody water was quickly integrated into the black water territory around the boy, the color of bright blood quickly covered by the black, and then everything returned to the same peaceful scene at the very beginning.

The Black Claw of Sethe’s power had already achieved the same level as a Grandmaster of Combat, and his current body was already capable of just barely releasing his aura, so he had indeed recovered some of his power.

But the laws of this world are different, it seemed that he could no longer fully condense his aura, and even at his current state, he could only insert his aura into an item and then use that to influence other external objects, he could no longer simply release it as he used to, and overwhelm the enemy with it alone.

But this way, he merged his aura into the water, and into the air, turning it into something ordinary people could see as well, and not just something only for the eyes of Grandmasters of Combat. It was just that this required a lot of energy, and right now Garen could only sustain this aura release for ten minutes max, the area covered by his aura included a radius of about ten meters with him in the center, within these ten meters, any and all creatures that enter this area would be subjected to a terrifying psychological illusory pressure, while at the same time the materialized Black Sethe Insidious Palm Power would also seep into the enemy’s body together with his aura, slowly weakening the opponent’s vitality and speed.

Right now, rather than saying his aura was a product of the merging of his spirit, it was more like a pure poisonous gas released from Garen’s body. This poisonous gas had a powerful hallucinatory effect, and could even weaken the opponent’s vitality and speed, plus it was soluble in water.

### Slaughtering Hand

#### Third level - Bloodshed

**Slaughtering hand: Third level: Bloodshed. (Can be upgraded to higher level)** **(Four levels in total, can derive and evolve to higher levels)**

This skill originated from Bloody King, Black Sethe's terrifying killing technique. Only after reaching the third level would it truly revealed the information within. One of the Ancient Ender's 42 Demon Kings, Black Sethe had an unspeakable talent for killing. With a glance, souls would be extinguished and legend spoke of his hands that could send anything to the abyss whether dead or alive…

‘Black Sethe, one of Ancient Ender's 42 Demon Kings possesses an indescribable killing talent. The soul of anything that he gazed upon would disappear immediately. Legend says that his hands were able to return everything to eternal silence, regardless whether they were living things or non-living things…'

During the time from the first year of junior high to high school, Garen was unable to upgrade a significant amount of potential points. However, he was able to break through to the third level of the Slaughtering Hand quickly. This Demonic Technique possessed a terrifying effect that could seize a living creature's life force, and compared to the two lower levels, the power of the third level did not depend on the evolution of the aspects but was focused on the effects of accumulated power.

As the most powerful Demonic Technique of the Demon King Black Sethe, the most frightening aspect of the Slaughtering Hand was its ability to absorb the life force of living creatures and accumulate it in both of its hands before releasing it when required.

The life force accumulation abilities of the third level were able to increase its destructive power by almost three times. Coupled with Garen's current basic strength, its power was almost equivalent to the peak powers that he had obtained in the Totem World. However, its range of affected areas was not very large.

In other words, his powers would probably be restored completely in a short span of time. Furthermore, he would be able to reach the Form 6 level of the Totem World. Solely practicing his Demonic Techniques to reach level three would allow him to approach the godly Form 6 powers of the Totem World, and this made Garen slightly suspicious. However, careful research made him realize that the Soul Seeds were one of the causes.

It seemed that the Soul Seeds possessed certain amplification effects that increased his power greatly whenever he practiced his Secret Techniques.

Garen rubbed his chin and glanced at the state of his Slaughtering Hand before realizing that this Demonic Technique was more abnormal than usual. Its basic powers were nothing extraordinary, but when the life forces that it had absorbed were accumulated, its power would reach a terrifying degree. Furthermore, it would release the life forces of hundreds of people at once when it exploded. "But it hasn't been accumulating much life force recently though…" Garen pondered for a moment...

He had yet to completely release the strongest powers of this Demonic Technique. However, he had noticed during his normal practice that the Soul Seed's amplification abilities would cause the Demonic Technique's powers to become unusually terrifying. Moreover, it would also cause frostbite-like injuries.

"Although I don't know for sure whether it's a Living Secret Technique or not, I can definitely see that it's not a Dying Secret Technique… Interesting." Garen checked the state of his Secret Technique pane carefully once more before getting up and returning to his bedroom to change into a new set of clothes.

Garen crouched on the riverbank and stirred the water with his left hand slowly before a few bright little silver fish swam over and nibbled his fingers gently. The moment the little silver fish touched his fingers, it's body stiffened before it stopped moving completely. Its nimble little body froze and it died immediately while it sank into the depths of the river mysteriously.

Garen narrowed his eyes slightly and observed a black crab that was crawling bossily out of a crack between some rocks on the riverbank. The crab waved its nail clipper sized claws at Garen's fingers and attempted to clamp down on them. Strangely, when the crab's claws touched Garen's fingers, its whole body stiffened before it collapsed and sank into the bottom of the river.

After witnessing this scene, Garen began to ponder deeply. When his Slaughtering Hand entered level three, the frightening aspects of this Secret Technique began to gradually show themselves. Most living creatures, especially the smaller and weaker ones, would only need to touch him before their Life Forces would be absorbed. The slightly larger and stronger ones would require strength roadmaps that utilized the flow of Secret Techniques.

The Slaughtering Hand was an extremely mysterious Secret Technique exercise as it didn't possess any specific power or energy. However, it resembled the Form 6 Totems of the Totem World which had a specialized energy because of the Living Secret Technique's fusion powers. On its own, the Slaughtering Hand could adjust the muscles in the user's body, as well as bioelectric currents, nerves, and hormones. It would produce a web of force pathways that were either exposed or hidden, and these forces would form a mysterious, complicated picture or image before finally forming a strange force that would attract Life Forces.

Magical hands. That was how Garen described both of his hands. Recently, when the time he spent in level three increased, mysterious powers began to form throughout both of his hands slowly. It had a strange but beautiful charm that he could not resist. He would look at both of his hands carefully from time to time, and would unconsciously be drawn to it, making it impossible for him to tear his eyes away. This was very odd.

##### Side Effect

"His eyes and gaze were enough to make souls vanish… Legend says that he was able to return everything to eternal silence. Does that sentence mean that this Secret Technique's roots belong in the eyes and hands?" Garen seemed lost in thought. Strange changes had occurred in his hands now, causing him to unconsciously make guesses of that sort.

He considered his hands carefully. He had ten, well-balanced and slender fingers. There were no unexpected water chestnut-like marks on his joints, making them unusually delicate-looking. His hands seemed like they were made of high-quality white jade as they were smooth and glossy, without any blemishes. Shh…!

Suddenly, the skin on the palms of his hands began to sink inwards slowly, before two pits of the exact same size appeared there as if the flesh of his palms were caving into an abyss. The depressions grew deeper and larger, and within a few seconds, the depressions on his hands had almost reached the back of his hands. Whoosh…

The depressions in his palms rotted away until two holes remained. There were now two bloody holes at the center of his palms that allowed him to see the surface of the water below. However, Garen did not feel any pain in his palms. He was slightly shocked. Before he could react, new changes began to form throughout his hands again.

Numerous white dots that resembled age spots appeared on the back of his hands slowly. His skin began to wrinkle quickly, before shriveling up and turning old. Meanwhile, his fingernails turned black slowly while the skin on the spaces between his fingers began to rot, causing small holes that made it possible to faintly see his white bones inside.

A sticky noise that sounded as if someone was stirring slime could be heard suddenly. Pieces of pulpy rotten flesh fell off Garen's hands before falling into the water below and making whooshing water noises. Beep beep beep… A crisp text message notification noise could be heard. Suddenly, Garen returned to his senses. He was blinded for a moment but soon realized that his hands were perfectly fine and that the rotting sensation from earlier was merely a hallucination.

After moving his hands for awhile, he suppressed the uncertain and shocked feelings in his mind. He took his phone out and glanced it before realizing that it was just a message that his phone provider had sent to promote some services. Garen kept his phone and checked his hands once again, confirming that there were no injuries.

"These hands seem quite dangerous…" He was on high alert now. If his own mind had almost been stirred up by his hands, other people would definitely fall into this trap easier. The most important part was that there was no way to weaken this strange magic, as this was a special characteristic that these hands naturally possessed.

#### Fourth level - Massacre

**Slaughtering Hand: Fourth level: Massacre (now creating more formation levels…)**

Mad massacres brought Black Sethe immeasurable pleasure, his hands could now steal away enemy souls through specific pressure points. After the fourth level, the Slaughtering Hand will be able to gather even more life force, and, by collecting information on the practitioners themselves, it will be able to create brand new derivative levels afterward.’

‘Soul Seed Strengthening Effect —— Frost Essence (adds frost power to attacks, can inflict frost damage on enemies. Has a very high resistance towards cold surroundings)’

## The Principle

He vaguely guessed that the principle of the Slaughtering Hand was to constantly decrease and dilute the Life Force in his hands, or perhaps remove it directly to form a Life Force hole in the world, maybe even a vacuum.

This way, the Life Forces in the surroundings of his palms would naturally travel towards an empty space with a lower Life Force density. In other words, it was the same as constantly removing air from a specific area. When the empty spaces in that area came close to becoming a vacuum, as long as a small hole was opened when needed, the hissing sound of flowing air would be heard. That phenomenon occurred when the air from the outer world was naturally compressed and pushed so that it would fill the empty space.

When the same type of substance was in a specific space, the substance would naturally disperse from a place with a higher density to another area with a lower density evenly, before eventually achieving a balanced state. Garen's mind interpreted it that way, as it was the simplest principle of diffusion.

He did not know how the Slaughtering Hand formed a diluted Life Force region. However, this meant that as long as he continued practicing Demonic Techniques with these hands, he would inch closer to reaching a true Life Force vacuum.

## Abilities

The Black Claw of Sethe has 4 levels, it’s an Ice-Poison attribute secret technique, after every level, the Ice-Poison attribute would be strengthened.

**Slaughtering hand: Third level: Bloodshed. (Can be upgraded to higher level)** **(Four levels in total, can derive and evolve to higher levels)**

This skill originated from Bloody King, Black Sethe's terrifying killing technique. Only after reaching the third level would it truly revealed the information within. One of the Ancient Ender's 42 Demon Kings, Black Sethe had an unspeakable talent for killing. With a glance, souls would be extinguished and legend spoke of his hands that could send anything to the abyss whether dead or alive…

**Slaughtering Hand: Fourth level: Massacre (now creating more formation levels…)**

Mad massacres brought Black Sethe immeasurable pleasure, his hands could now steal away enemy souls through specific pressure points. After the fourth level, the Slaughtering Hand will be able to gather even more life force, and, by collecting information on the practitioners themselves, it will be able to create brand new derivative levels afterward.’

### Soul Seed Strengthening Effect

‘Soul Seed Strengthening Effect —— Frost Essence (adds frost power to attacks, can inflict frost damage on enemies. Has a very high resistance towards cold surroundings)’

## Black Sethe's Will

Less than two minutes after the Secret Technique was upgraded, Garen felt something cool gushing out from his brain and spreading throughout his body. In that instant, both his hands became hot and he vaguely heard some kind of raging roar. In a trance, Garen felt as though he could see a human-shaped murky dark smoke in front of him.

*"I wiisll kam!! Wiisll kam!!!"* The human-shaped smoke had a pair of eyes that exuded endless light. It roared furiously and then under Garen's gaze, it crumbled and turned into black dust entering his body through his nose, mouth, and ears. "Ancient Ender's language?" Garen sat on a window, wobbly.

From other people's perspective, he had been sitting on a windowsill quietly from the start to the end. Yet, if someone got close to him, they would realize that in the white of his eyes, black smoke was swirling. The black smoke quickly flowed into Garen's pupils and disappeared. He did not know what that thing was talking about.

It seemed like Ancient Ender's words but that combination of words made no sense to him. If he did not guess wrong, that figure should be Ancient Ender's Demon King, Black Sethe but why was he so furious? The secret must be connected to the mysterious disappearance of the Ancient Ender's civilization.

Garen snapped back to attention. He felt some changes in his Attribute pane and looked at it. What he saw shocked him. The previous human-shaped smoke turned into a shadow with a pair of white eyes in the Attribute pane and charged at the name Garen Thomas. As the shadow got nearer, Garen felt a chill in his body as though something dangerous was threatening his safety.

"It's trying to possess me?" Garen's gaze turned cold. The Seed of Soul inside his body burst into a bright blue humanoid and pounced on the shadow. The blue figure was holding an icy blue halberd, his face looking exactly the same as the Garen of his past life. With his gaze cold, he waved the halberd to fight with the shadow.

Two tiny humanoids were fighting each other furiously on the Attribute pane. It looked like two kids fighting but Garen knew this involved his life's safety. The shadow was powerful beyond words. Initially, Garen was beaten without any chance to fight back but as time went by, Little Garen who had the continuous support from Seed of Soul finally managed to suppress the shadow.

In the end, with a roar, the shadow collapsed, turning into smoke and was absorbed by the Slaughtering Hand in the Attribute pane. Everything became calm again. Garen came back from his trance. Just now he focused his attention on the Seed of Soul and fought a death match with the shadow. Even with Northern Trident Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique, he still got beaten black and blue.

That shadow was obviously not in its prime but with some strange techniques, it managed to suppress an Evil Technique with not a tenth of its strength. Fighting it with its strength fully recovered could truly be very dangerous…

Only after checking over his whole body and finding nothing wrong did Garen heave a sigh of relief, pick up his violin case and walk out of the classroom towards the place where he'd parked his vehicle.

He vaguely felt that the shadow was not the real Black Sethe but a fraction of him. Black Claw of Sethe had two parts. He got one himself and Andrela got the other. Both had been sealed inside metal cases. Although Black Claw of Sethe was something that Garen could not completely understand, it had appeared in Secret Techniques that were hidden in other ruins. Perhaps this Black Claw of Sethe was meant as a net, and as long as someone could break through to the third level, there would be an opportunity to possess that person.

"Unfortunate." Garen shook his head, "Even with my level, the mutation by the Seed of Soul and training since I was a child, it did not allow me to reach the third level, never mind others. Most of the people probably can't even break through the first level. It would be a miracle if someone manages to the second level after training for tens of years."

Putting aside these thoughts, there was no sense of crisis from Slaughtering Hand anymore. The fraction of Black Sethe should have been eliminated by the Seed of Soul. Garen was much relieved.

## Links and References

1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 Chapter 586
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Chapter 569
3. ↑ Chapter 570
4. ↑ Chapter 571
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Chapter 572
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 573
7. ↑ Chapter 575
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 Chapter 577
9. ↑ 9.00 9.01 9.02 9.03 9.04 9.05 9.06 9.07 9.08 9.09 9.10 9.11 9.12 9.13 9.14 9.15 9.16 9.17 9.18 9.19 Chapter 598
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 Chapter 595
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 597
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chapter 630
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 Chapter 587