“An evil eye"s talents lay in their psychic magic, however these magicks are bounds by severe limitations—”Right in the middle of Manasha"s explanation, the evil eye suddenly released the feelers wrapped around its body and,with its giant eye glowing a sinister red, fired off a psychic attack at the medusas in a bid to control her. Caught off guard, she abruptly halted her explanation due to the sudden interference.
Strangely enough, she managed to instantly shake off the psychic spell as if she was immune to it. Prior to this, she had a.s.sumed that the evil eye was harmless after getting burnt by her toxin. Truly, it was a huge mistake on her part.
Having lost control of its psychic spell, the resulting backlash immediately fired back at the evil eye"s mind. Brains spasming from the rending pain, it desperately tried to alleviate its suffering by continually rolling around on the floor.
“You actually tried to control me, looks like you truly wish to die!” Her lips curved into a disdainful smile and a second later, her hefty tail lashed at the unfortunate meatball and sent it flying like a soccer ball. A few meters away, the meaty soccer ball collided into the Prison walls and then, bounced off harmlessly with its amazing elasticity…
"Come to think of it, why wasn"t she affected by the evil eye"s mind control?" While there hadn"t been any clear indication of what level it was at, it had to have been a four-star given the way it managed to control Weslin and several dozens of lizardmen.
“Let"s take care of the undead first, as for that evil eye…it doesn"t have the ability to cause trouble for the time being, I"ll just have Majosha look after it.”
“Alright.”
Now that the evil eye had lost its ability to fight, its control over the lizardmen and Weslin had been broken. The moment she woke up, she found, to her surprise, that she was in the middle of a skeleton horde. Around her, the lizardmen who had been placed under control were all in a bad shape with some even dying during their feeding frenzy. Of her remaining subordinates, only ten or so were still in fighting shape.
“What…what am I doing here?” She said, eyes slightly glazed over in confusion. Thankfully, even in the midst of her muddled state, her battle instincts weren"t lost. Tossing aside the half eaten rat in her hands, she spun around in a deadly dance of tail and razor sharp claws. In just a few seconds, the skeletons around her were reduced to nothing but a pile of scattered bones.
“Those of you who are still lucid, follow me closely, we"re charging out of here.”
Thanks to her formidable strength, Weslin made it through their feeding frenzy completely unscathed. Her four-star strength was currently working at full throttle as she furiously zipped around the battlefield and saved her wounded brethren. “Bring those that can be saved with you and follow my lead!”
Without wasting a single second, she violently charged into the dense skeleton pack and forcefully cleaved a clear path for her breathren. Behind her, the ten or so lizardmen, all laden with a injured comrade, obediently stuck close to her and ran for their lives.
Faced with a life or death situation, Weslin"s mind was more focused than it had ever been and that caused her combat strength to skyrocket in response. No matter who it was, two-star or three-star skeleton, she swept through them, claws reaping a life with every swipe.
“Vice clan leader, we"ll clear a path for you!”
Up till now, the lizardmen who were fortunate to be spared from the evil eye"s mind control were forced to mount a desperate defense to the death. Seeing Weslin lead the survivors back in a furious charge, their spirits were immediately lit on fire as they started charging into the skeletons in order to welcome their leader back.
Thanks to that, Weslin"s break through went a lot smoother and they ended up escaping without a casualty!
Now that she was back, the battle had basically entered its closing phase. Just as Manasha explained, the highest level of undead the defensive array could summon was three-star with no possibility of anything higher. Without any elite forces of their own, our job naturally became a lot easier.
With the four-stars acting as their spearhead, my melee forces mounted a full-scale a.s.sault on the remaining skeletons.
Watching from the backlines, I diligently fired off my fire spells into skeleton army, clearing a giant patch of undead in an instant with my fireb.a.l.l.s and cutting them off with a roaring flame wall. While they clearly weren"t comparable to Numila"s fire attacks which were boosted by Flametail, they still managed to take a decent chunk out of the enemy.
From the moment the three-star skeletons joined the battle, Violet Snow began attacking as well. With a stomp of her tiny paws, she fired off wave after after of ice spells with ever growing ease. In fact, these ice b.a.l.l.s and ice shards weren"t just the usual ice spells from my memory, they had grown noticeably stronger and were even able to freeze a three-star skeleton with ease.
Right at the very end however, she fired an ice area of effect spell that summoned a giant icicle from the ceiling and sent it crashing down on the skeleton army, wiping out the last ten three-star skeletons. "This power…there"s no way that could come from a three-star!"
“I"ve…evolved?” Staring at her tiny paws, Violet Snow had a look on her face that was just as shocked as I was.
Thus, the battle came to an unexpectedly flamboyant end. On the whole, we didn"t suffer much losses and instead gained over 100 000 soul flames, though the majority of that came from zero to one-star undead…also we gained a four-star evil eye captive!
"Speaking of which, I still have a b.u.t.t load of questions that need answers so I need that meatball to spit out all he knows."
After ordering them not to approach the Door of the Dead, I had my guardsmen sweep up the battlefield while I approached the evil eye who was still wrapped up in its feelers. I lightly kicked the motionless meatball but it didn"t seem to want to respond at all.
"Is it playing dead?"
However, just as that thought crossed my mind, the feelers unwound themselves rapidly, revealing the giant eye hidden beneath in an instant. Immediately, I was struck by an intangible psychic power as it turned its emotionless red eye onto me.
"Was this the psychic mind control of a evil eye?" It felt like a high powered drill had rammed into my head and was in the midst of drilling into my psyche in order to usurp control of my body. Thankfully, my psychic power wasn"t weak either. After all, even after reincarnating I still possessed the APM of a 40 year old single man…I mean, the psychic reservoir of a sage; the boundless, limitless, infinite reservoir of a sage.
"As a sage with the prospects of becoming a grand sage, how could I be defeated by such a ba.n.a.l mind control spell!"
"Actually…all that talk about a sage"s psychic reservoir…that was just me messing around. In truth, the reason I was able to resist its mind control was because the Mark of Envy activated." The Mark of Envy (TL: the tattoo he gained when he evolved.) was the hallmark of an illusion demon and had a mesmerizing effect on living creatures.
Illusion demons were experts in psychic magic as well but unlike the demons, an evil eye"s ability was to directly usurp control of a person"s body. To be exact, it forcefully severed the connection between an enemy and his soul and a.s.serted control over that body. In contrast, an illusion demon"s magicks were focused primarily on illusions; spells that disrupted the senses and caused hallucinations.
"Hah, you picked the wrong devil to mess with, to think you actually tried to control this big brother, how foolish!"
Almost a second after he tried to control me, my mark automatically activated itself and dispelled his control over me. For his efforts, he was promptly rewarded with a decisive kick of my feet and the same horrific backlash he experienced just moments ago. Once more, the meatball rolled around in pain in a bid to distract himself from the pain.
“So this is the bast*rd that attacked me just now?” Looking at its pained figure, I was just about to give it a couple more kicks for good measure when Weslin came up to me with that question.
Judging from the tone of her voice, she must have had some lingering resentment over the fact that she was mind controlled… "come to think of it, anyone would be uncomfortable with the way she embarra.s.sed herself just now, even more so because I even pulled out the [Habona] card on her."
"By now, everyone probably heard of her special relationship with Habona…oh, what I meant to say was, Weslin"s one-sided hope that she could be in a special relationship with Habona."
Without a doubt, that had to be a stain on her reputation, for all we know by tomorrow, no, perhaps even half a day later, that bit of gossip would"ve spread like wildfire amongst the other demons and devils and sp.a.w.n a mult.i.tude of versions. After all, everyone was a little bored in this dreary h.e.l.lhole.
“Hey, make sure you don"t kill him…*thwack* I still have…*boing* a lot to…*thwack* ask it…”Seeing her approach the meatball eyes fuming and feet stomping, I hurriedly step in to remind her not to go overboard. However, before I could even finish my sentence, Weslin batted the rolling meatball away with a flick of her tail as if it was some kind of baseball and sent it bouncing against the wall. Flick, bounce, flick, bounce…thus this scene continuously played out with no end in sight.
"This…it was as if she was playing squash ball."
“Hey…Weslin…make sure not to kill him…”
“Don"t worry, I"ll take my time with him.” As she said that, her head turned around for a brief moment after which her lips curled up into a sinister grin. Then, without missing a beat, she turned around once more and flicked her tail, striking the head of the evil eye just as it bounced back. “I"ll make sure he has a breath left in him.”
“…” "At least you remembered to do so, must"ve been hard on you."
Finally, Weslin"s venting came to an end and I was able to question the meatball. However, its condition wasn"t really stable by now…or rather, it was about to die any moment.
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A couple of its feelers were broken and its bouncy head was leaking some kind of disgusting green fluid. No matter how one looked at it, it gave off the impression of a dying meatball.
“About that…weren"t you a little…violent with your venting?”
“Hmm, I think so too.” Seeing the strange look I gave her, she was slightly embarra.s.sed as well. I distinctly remembered telling her to not to kill him, that meant beating him half to death not as good as dead!
Thankfully, Manasha had some experience with such matters so she promptly had some soul flames delivered to the evil eye. The moment she did so, the evil eye practically rolled itself onto the soul flames and began absorbing them. A minute or so later, its condition was noticeably better. What were a bunch of bleeding wounds just a while ago had completely closed up and it seemed like a perfectly serviceable meatball once more.
"Mhm, if Weslin wants to play some more squash, perhaps…I could let her have another match."
"Sigh, why am I stuck with these bunch of potatoes who don"t know how to hold back? Don"t they know that I still have a lot of questions to force out of him…oops, I just said something bad, didn"t I?"
Now that it was interrogation time, Majosha took the initiative to restrain the evil eye and prevent it from moving. As for Harlow, he had the self-awareness to hide in a corner to avoid any accidents.
Like the lizardmen, the demonic werewolves were susceptible to psychic control.
“What language do these evil eyes speak?” Noticing its lack of a mouth, I was a little stumped as to how to proceed with the interrogation, like a rat trying to figure out a way to drag a turtle.
(TL: The turtle hides in its sh.e.l.l so the rat has no way of tying a rope around it and dragging it along.)
Yet in midst of my confusion, a strange voice that sounded neither male nor female entered my mind directly. This method of communication wasn"t like Ferti"nier"s method communicating directly with the soul. Instead, it employed a psychic means to deliver its message to the mind without going through the ears.
“Esteemed l.u.s.t Demon, what enquiries does your excellency wish answered?”
“You…you can talk?” I stared wide-eyed at the evil eye for what felt like half a day. Having inspected its spherical body for a while, I truly couldn"t find anything that resembled a mouth on it. Even when it absorbed those souls, it did so through contact. Its feelers would extend and suck on the soul flames as if they were a pipe.