Chapter 210 Squishy Little Worms
"Calm yo t.i.ts, hooman. Do you want to make these two sad? They gave their best here!" Asteria, the ever-so-irritating fairy, surprisingly defended Queen Mother and Professor Frances as she started to rebuke Alex.
Sufficed to say, Alex was surprised to see Asteria acting like this.
"Really? You"re defending them?" Alex said as he stared at the diminutive fairy. "Did you get your head hit or something?"
"Hah? Of course not. I"m not that stupid." Asteria replied as she crossed her arms. "I just happened to help out in the creation of these Brain Eaters, so naturally, I will defend them!"
"Oh, so that is why I don"t like these things." Alex replied as he looked like he achieved enlightenment. "You actually helped on creating this. No wonder I want to kill them with fire…"
"Hey hooman! What do you mean by that!"
"Hah? Of course you can understand what I am saying. Don"t tell me you already forgot?"
"You!"
Before Alex and Asteria"s conversation could blow up into an all-out argument, Professor Frances let out a cough as she tried to obtain the attention of the two.
"If you want to argue, just do it later. For now, I still have to demonstrate what these Brain Eaters can do." Professor Frances said in a patronizing voice as Alex and Asteria were forced to break up their argument. "Are you listening to me now? Good, now look at this petri dish."
After hearing this prompt form Professor Frances, Alex naturally looked back at the petri dish, which made him look at the Brain Eaters again.
Professor Frances then continued talking as she pointed at the Brain Eaters that are still wriggling on the petri dish.
"These Brain Eaters, just like what its name says, has the capability to eat small portions of human brain." The professor said as she poked one of the Brain Eaters with her forceps. "Once a Brain Eater enters a human brain, it will fuse with that brain and it will then slowly eat portions of that brain. With the eating habits of a Brain Eater, their hosts can live for around 10-20 years before they drop dead from aneurysm(brain bleeding)."
"…" As Alex and Alina both visibly winced at the professor"s explanation, Professor Frances continued to talk, as if what she just said did not bother her at all.
"However, I did not create these Brain Eaters for the sake of eating other people"s brains. I created these them so that I can control other people."
"Control other people?" Alex uttered as he looked at the Brain Eaters with a puzzled look on his face.
"Oh, I forgot to tell it to you. These Brain Eaters are entirely under Queen Mother"s control." The professor said as she waved her hands dismissively. "Everything that they will do will be dictated by the commands given to them by Queen Mother. That means that if she tells them to not kill, then they will not kill, unless she told them to do so."
"So, how does that help us in controlling people?"
"Tsk. If we place a Brain Eater inside a person"s brain, then that unlucky person will be our unwilling p.a.w.n." The professor said as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Once a Brain Eater was already in a brain, Queen Mother will give it the command to not eat, and she will just command it to stay fused with that person"s brain. Now if that person tries to rebel to us, then the Brain Eater will instantly kill that person by eating its brain in large portions."
"…" After hearing these words from the Professor, Alex already started to have a premonition of what the professor actually wanted to do.
"Hold on… are you proposing on placing Brain Eaters on the brains of the Symbolists and Celestials that I captured?" Alex asked the professor as he gave the Brain Eaters another wary look. "Are you sure that it will really work?"
"Hmph, of course it will." Professor Frances replied confidently as she crossed her arms. "Do you want to know why? I can give you a definite reason right now."
"…Spill it then."
"Hmph! If you will use magic to make your captives subservient to your control, they can use their mental resistance to resist it. Not only that, but stronger Symbolists and Celestial might notice your magic, and they could do something to negate that magic." The professor said calmly.
She then looked at her Brain Eaters with a proud expression as she continued talking.
"As for my Brain Eaters, they will physically fuse with a brain, making them impossible to remove. Your captives will have no choice but to follow your commands or else the Brain Eater will kill them. And even if a Symbolist or a Celestial wants to remove a Brain Eater from a brain, they will have to chop off parts of the brain in order to do that! But doing that will instantly kill the host!"
"…" As Alex and Alina digested what they heard, the Professor looked at them smugly as she let out a laugh.
"Now, looking at that reasoning, isn"t using a Brain Eater better than using magic?"
"…Yeah, I think you"re right." Alex mumbled in reply as he rubbed his chin. The more that he thought about it, the more attractive the prospect of using a Brain Eater looked to him
From what Alex knew, Alina has a Dark Magic that will allow her to make weaker-willed people become her servants.
Using this spell on the people that Alex captured will not be feasible, as most of them had mental resistance to mental spells.
And just like what the professor said earlier, someone powerful can negate this spell even if it works.
Clearly , using magic to make all of Alex"s captured people obedient will be of no use here.
But if a Brain Eater was the one used to make them subservient, then there will be no problems, as there"s no kind of mental resistance that can keep these Brain Eaters out of the brain!
And if these Brain Eaters really does fuse with the brain itself, then it will be impossible to remove these Brain Eaters at all!
That"s a win-win situation right there!
"These Brain Eaters clearly are formidable." Alex murmured as he began to look at the wriggling worms with more interest. "So these are all under the control of Queen Mother? Hehehe, at least I won"t have to be worried about them getting berserk…"
"Hmph, with Queen Mother"s sovereignty over life itself, these pesky little worms will have no choice but to follow her blindly." Professor Frances said as she did a high-five with Queen Mother.
"…."
After she did that high-five with Queen Mother, Professor Frances looked back at Alex with an expectant expression on her face as she asked him,
"Now Alex, are these worms the ones that you are looking for?"
"Well, I did not expect to get something like this, but I think this is already enough." Alex said as he rubbed the back of his head. "Well, when can we deploy these little worms?"
"From the rate of the reproduction of these worms, it will take me 4 more hours before I can use them." The professor replied quickly.
"4 hours? Ok, ok. Once you get the right amount of Brain Eaters, you will place them inside the brains of all our Captives." Alex said as he began to formulate his next set of plans. "You will spare no one, which means that you will also place Brain Eaters on the brains of Nero and Anya. Oh, just place 3 Brain Eaters each on the brains of those two… Since those two are so talented, we should always be wary of them."
"Tsk, tsk, so you are fine with what I am doing here? Well, well, well, I can see that you have the potential to become like me." Professor Frances said as she let out a chuckle. "Okay, shoo, shoo, the two of you. Go out and do whatever you want to do. Just leave the matters of the Brain Eaters to us."
"…If you say so." Alex replied as he and Alina hurriedly left the lair.
With Alex still creeped out by the appearance of these Brain Eaters, he will obviously not step back to the lair, well unless he needed to do so.
**************
While Alex and Alina were busy on finding a way to enslave their captives, something different is happening somewhere.
1,000 leagues away from Alex, a small tent could be seen, and inside that tent, Ray and his Companions could be seen busy bickering with each other.
"Noelle, you f**ked us up again!" Ray said as he looked like he was about to pounce at the mousy-looking girl in front of him. "Why did it take you so long to confirm their deaths? If you just looked 5 seconds earlier, then maybe we could have caught up to them!"
"I…" Noelle, whose small frame went smaller as she cowered under Ray"s ferocious glare, could only stutter as she said,
"It"s an ac-accident… And besides, how could I know that they can survive your b-bombs? You always said that your bombs always kill their t-targets…"
"They are not bombs! They are Single Use, Area of Effect Implements! When will your tiny mind learn to remember that?" Ray bellowed as he glared at the smaller woman. "Are you really stupid or what?"
"Ray, just cool it off." Vera, who was watching the argument between the two, suddenly said as she placed her hand on Ray"s shoulder. "And Noelle, I think you should go out first and scout the surroundings. You never know, someone might try to ambush us tonight."
"O-o-okay, Sis Vera." Noelle hastily replied as she her body phased out of the tent. From the grateful tone in Noelle"s voice, it was quite apparent that she was happy to leave the tent.
"Vera, why are you always sticking up for her? That little runt is the reason that we failed, and yet you are still coddling her?" Ray said to Vera as he sat down on his chair with a little force. "Don"t you think you are spoiling her a little bit?"
"I"m not spoiling her, Ray." Vera replied as she shook her head. "You know that she is not at fault with what happened earlier. We just happened to meet a Traveler, and that Traveler is the reason that our plans failed."
"Tsk, that Traveler is lucky I did not catch him on time." Ray growled as his eyes began to turn red. "If I did… not even his ashes can be scattered for his funeral!"
"Those are some bold words from someone who got knocked out with one punch earlier." Vera said as she gave Ray an amused smile.
"Hey! There"s no way that I can stay conscious from your Martial Techniques!" Ray hotly said as he glared at Vera. "You know that I am only good at long distance and ambush fighting… How do you expect me to survive a fist-fight with you?"
"Well, at least you still have some room for improvement. Bazooka Fist, was it? That"s a nice sounding attack, but I did not feel any bazooka from that punch earlier." Vera said as she started to shake her head in amus.e.m.e.nt. "Maybe next time, you should focus on giving your attacks better power rather than better names. Maybe if you did that, you can be a better fighter."
"Hmph! Let me tell you tha-" Whatever words Ray was trying to say next was cut off, as a strangled shout were heard by him and Vera.
"That shout! It came from Noelle!" Vera said as her eyes widened in panic. "If Noelle is like this, then that means that we"re being attacked right now!"
At the moment that she said these words, Vera"s appearance suddenly changed as her nightwear disappeared, only to be replaced by a set of tight-fitting fighting robes.
Swads of cloth covered her knuckles, as a set of metal rings adorned the s.h.i.+ns of her legs.
Her hair was now tied up in a ponytail, and a long wooden stick appeared on her back.
Ray ignored Vera"s transformation as he stood up with a predatory look on his face.
"Tsk, so someone really did try to attack us." Ray said as his hands began to glow. "Hmph, let"s see if these attackers are the ones that we want to see!"
"Boom!"
After Ray said these words, a ma.s.sive gas explosion suddenly appeared in the area, shredding and tearing everything apart, including the tent that Ray was in.