Lex listened to Geeves for a long while, and came up with his own descriptions of Foundational and Relational laws. Foundational laws were loosely similar to the laws of science he studied back on Earth - very, very loosely.

On Earth he studied the nature of all objects and their behaviors under different circumstances. The Foundational laws were basically just the rules that dictated that nature and behavior.

Relational laws, on the other hand, were more metaphysical, and could not really be studied. Or, well, maybe quantum physics studied those things, but since Lex had never studied it back on Earth, he wasn’t familiar with what it covered. But the point was, based on how Lex understood it, Relational laws were more conceptual in nature.

In a way, that made sense. No wonder he wasn’t able to understand Abaddon at all using merely Foundational laws. Now, all he needed to do was get used to observing and interacting with Relational laws, learn how to understand them, and pick out the pattern between them. Simple.

Fortunately, while Abaddon was a place of unimaginable danger, it was similarly a place teeming with treasures. Since they had changed their objective from searching for the chalice to searching for treasures, their task was much easier.

In fact, treasure hunting was one of the favorite tasks a mercenary could take on. This was not stereotyping, or anything of the sort. Mercenaries were not all good hearted people dying to dedicate themselves to a cause. They were people who wanted money, and wouldn’t be afraid to fight for it.

The particular batch of mercenaries in Abaddon were extremely loyal to the Condottiere, but that didn’t mean all mercenaries were like that. But all mercenaries did have a fascination with, and attraction to treasure so strong they’d risk their lives for it. Such a disposition naturally meant that they had the requisite skills to go treasure hunting.

The only real obstacle was not being killed by the treasures themselves. That very day, once they set out from their location, they traveled from the glaciers to a barren land, devoid of a single blade of grass.

The ground was hard and cracked. So long had it existed like this that the soil had turned to stone. When the wind blew through the cracks in the ground, instead of whistling, the wind whimpered, as if it was afraid.

The deep red sky became even richer in color, and seemed to bleed out onto the land in the horizon, though anyone could tell that was a mere illusion. The sky wasn’t bleeding - it was merely raining blood over there.

As ominous a place as that seemed, that was exactly the kind of place which would be filled with countless treasures, so they marched directly towards the rain of blood.

Z, the most astute of the group, naturally understood that this was an elaborate setup by Lex to enter into the next phase of his training. They had a deadline, a looming threat, and needed to find just the right treasures that would help Lex uncover the secrets of this place. How convenient.

But he didn’t complain. He simply adopted what he called Horror-movie-mentality and ran headfirst towards the place that screamed ’gruesome death waiting here’. As a surprise to absolutely no one, the region where it was raining blood was filled with macabre monstrosities, their bodies made entirely out of blood and guts.

Just as the locusts were interested in their souls, and the wraiths were interested in their bodies, these bloody things were interested in their spirits! The worst part was that all of these creatures were just clumps gathered from the numerous corpses that filled the area, possessed by a particularly forbidding will. It was similar to the hunger that filled all the locusts, but instead of hunger, it seemed to find its origins in pain - an eternal, unending psychological pain that knew no respite.

The sight of those creatures caused apprehension in the mercenaries, but nothing beyond what they could handle. Even bloody gut monsters were better than chimera in their eyes.

Oddly enough, the sight of those monsters drew the biggest reaction from the members of the Midnight Inn.

An undeniable fear and hate gripped each and every single one of the members of the Midnight Inn who had arrived here, including Lex. The experience was extremely confusing, because those feelings seemed to originate from the very core of their being.

Fear and hate. It affected every single human - and even the beast who had transformed into a human, Malfoy.

Lex, who was sitting on the shoulder of the Midnight mech, paused his meditation and turned his attention towards the corpses on the ground. There wasn’t enough of a single corpse left to allow them to distinguish what the whole body must have looked like. But by observing hundreds, even thousands of corpses, and fitting their pieces together in his mind, he drew up an image.

These corpses, before they were butchered, looked like gorillas. Their size was not bigger, nor were they bulkier than normal gorillas. If there was any difference at all in their body structure, it was that their skeletal structure was more similar to a human, meaning they likely stood on and walked on two legs. Oh, and instead of hair covering their body, they had grey, metallic spikes. Even so, they looked fairly similar to a gorilla.

Why would their appearance strike fear in their hearts? Since Lex did not recognize the race, he conjured an image and appeared in front of Kaemon.

"Do you recognize this race?" Lex asked, his expression stern. "They don’t seem like they’re from Abaddon. This is the first sign of outsiders we’ve encountered so far."

"Yeah, that’s the Gon race," Kaemon said, recognizing the image at a glance. "Their race is a follower of the Path of Chaos. Although we haven’t really faced them, learning about the top races from the Path of Chaos is mandatory for the Reaving Dread."

Kaemon paused, and turned to look towards Lex.

"One of their most significant historical achievements was to eliminate the last of the human Dao Lords."