PenguinKills
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Chapter 104 - Death
🕑 Added 2024-08-09 20:00:11 +0000 UTC~~AN~~
There's going to be a double chapter today! This one till post at the usual time and the second will come 5 minutes after at 4:05, so stay tuned for that.
Enjoy!
~~
Chris
With all three bosses dead, all that was left standing was me and the man responsible for this whole thing. He had recovered from the shock of me defeating the bosses and was directing the monsters surrounding us into the fray.
All the good that did.
They were little more than an annoyance now and they fell to the ice swirling around me easily. They entered into a 50-foot area around me and were swiftly chopped to pieces.
Even so, the man continually directed them to die.
Words streamed out of his mouth, trying to worm their way into my head but I didn't let them. I clamped down on any foreign influence trying to influence me and obliterated it completely.
The feeling that something deep inside was welling up came back as I walked over the Blaze Lion's frozen corpse but I didn't know what it was.
Without any more beasts to interfere, I levered my gaze upon the one who had caused all of this. The man who couldn't leave well enough alone and thought himself invincible.
It was vindicating to see him brought so low. Sputtering and flailing around like some coward.
Every step took me closer to him and the end of the whole charade. Seeing his beasts get slaughtered trying to defend him, he pulled out a sword to defend himself.
Seeing the weapon I couldn't help but snort. Now? Now he was going to fight like a real warrior? To defend himself with his meager abilities.
With the weapon in hand, he gained control over himself and stood ready for battle. It was laughable.
He thought he could fight me. The same man who just decimated his army and he thought he could put up any resistance against me.
The thought spurned me
His sword wouldn't save him.
~~
The Mindbreaker
None of his skills were working. Every suggestion he made either flowed off the man or was torn through like paper. All the mental manipulations had no effect and he couldn't even anchor one mental claw into his mind.
Ever since he mentioned his family dying all influence was rejected utterly. Like some switch was flipped and the claws he had made trying to worm his way in were severed.
He had miscalculated.
Craig pulled as much as he could on the bloodline he had assimilated to no avail. The Jade Scale Siren was one of the most expensive purchases he had made and it was failing him.
What was supposed to elevate his mental skills past the point of being shrugged off failed. It was like trying to dig into frozen earth during winter. When the earth was so hard that metal broke before penetrating it.
Craig had no idea how the man was doing it. Nothing else in the tutorial had been able to stand up to him after gaining his Siren bloodline. Everything fell under its influence with a few skills.
Even more so after evolving to E-rank. His new class and class skills were supposed to be unmatched inside their tutorial. Especially by someone not even in the same rank.
He had [Identified] the icy warrior already and he was only level 50. Not even evolved to E-rank yet. That was the beginning of his miscalculations.
Craig thought that trapping the powerful man inside his camp would give him a new mighty warrior to add to his army. He had seen the icy man's strength and knew that it would be a great boon to add it to his army.
His rank advantage had given him confidence. A confidence that was now thoroughly shattered.
That was the reason he left his keep. The keep he yearned to be in right now to separate him away from this... monster.
He had made a grave mistake and everything he did to try to escape was shot down.
All of his more powerful beasts were out with the rest of his army. He had only kept the three best suited to deal with the suicidal warrior. Craig hadn't thought the man would throw himself, alone, into his camp and he had thought to capitalize on that separation.
There was never going to be another chance to dominate him so easily. When he was alone and surrounded by his minions. Where every second wasted was another step toward defeat.
That was why he mentioned his family's death. Craig had thought that saying that, the man would give up and fall to his influence. To falter at the mention of what had caused Craig such pain and despair himself.
He regretted that now. He should have never mentioned his family.
It was like the man was reborn after that, like caution was thrown to the wind and he emptied all of who he was into the fight.
Craig's mental shackles were slogged off and the three powerful bosses he had kept specifically for him were torn asunder. Easily at that.
He remembered watching as the Blaze Lion, a once fiery inferno, froze solid.
Who did something like that? Who had the strength to do something like that? Craig thought he alone held that kind of strength.
Where Craig had an army of minions at his beck and call, this man alone was an army in of itself. All of Craig's plans were dashed now, little more than a child's fantasies.
He had thought his army would sweep through the tutorial, killing all who had done nothing to save his family. Killing all who had denied him aid.
It was all futile now. His grand plans were left unrealized.
Regret and unacceptance raged in his mind but there was nothing he could do to stop the man's advance toward him. With every step the man got closer, it was like the gallows came with him.
It felt as if he came any closer, Craig's doom was assured. An inescapable dread fell over him.
That only made him rage more. Why couldn't he have this kind of strength? Why did this man get what he was denied? If Craig could have been given this strength his family would still be alive!
His girls would still have a future left to live!
Craig pulled his sword out of its sheath and stood to face the man down. He used to have the warrior class and he still had some skills from it.
Skills like [Power Strike] and [Sword Mastery]. He hadn't used them in a while but he could knock the cobwebs off now.
There was no use in trying his mental skills any longer as they would be ripped apart.
Some confidence flowed back into him with those thoughts. The ice-clad juggernaut didn't even have [Identify Block] which left his level easy to see.
Craig was over level 60. Over 10 levels of difference. Plus, his class was a Rare variant. His profession was up there too. Lower than his class but still in E-rank.
Yes, he could maybe get lucky. Stall long enough for his more powerful beasts to get back and save him.
The warrior had to be running on fumes. He had used a monumental amount of mana already and the willpower to shrug off Craig's influence wasn't small. He wouldn't be able to do it forever.
Yes, there was still a way out of this.
The man's advance suddenly stopped and he spoke for the first time, "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Both hands rested on the hammer that had brought so much destruction. The massive weapon planted on the ground.
Did he have anything to say for himself?
The words angered him. Who was he to act so arrogant? Like Craig was somebody to be looked down upon?
Well, since he was delaying to open up a dialog, Craig would use this. He pulled on his bloodline to infuse his words with all his will and activated all the skills he could.
"Mercy! I surrender. I'll call off m-"
His words died in his throat as the hammer shot up and around before slamming into his side, launching him through the air. His breath left him making him sputter and hyperventilate to get it back.
The scales on his body blunted some of the impact but that didn't stop the damage. Ribs broke and fractured along with his insides getting turned to mush from the force.
Pain exploded out of his side and his mind struggled to focus. Blood escaped his mouth signifying extreme internal damage.
Hacking up globs of blood, Craig couldn't help but think, How is he so strong?
The hammer felt like getting hit by a runaway train.
"Did you think I would believe that? There is only one thing that people like you deserve."
The man's walk toward his crippled form was even and firm. Every footfall without hesitation. The man stood over Craig and there was nothing he could do about it. His sword was flung from his hand after the attack.
An attack so fast he could barely see it, let alone defend against it. The fact it was so fast and carried such strength should have been impossible.
The man stopped and looked Craig in the eyes. He locked on to them without flinching at what should have been the mesmerizing effect they gained when calling on his bloodline.
Only one word came after his statement.
"Death"
Blackness followed and all the useless emotions that welled up inside him splattered into oblivion matching his brain matter.
His last thought was one of regret.
He didn't even see the hammer.
~~
Chris
I couldn't help but feel a small amount of vindication as I stood over his exploded head. While gory and graphic it may be, satisfaction was hard to not feel.
I had done it, killed the man responsible. Now all I had to do was clean up the rest of them. Instantly, beasts started to go wild, rampaging around. They scrambled to kill each other and started a massive brawl.
It was no doubt happening everywhere else as well.
The humans that were under his compulsion stood listlessly, doing nothing but standing still. It was eerie to see them so lifeless. There had to be a way to return them to who they were but that wasn't something we had the power to do.
Instead of staying in the camp to kill the monsters, I left and ran back toward where my family was fighting. The monsters in the camp would kill each other, there was no need for me to stay.
Plus, I had a bad feeling welling up inside me. The fight to kill the Mindbreaker took longer than I thought it would.
A lot of things could have happened during my family's fight while I was dealing with the three bosses. They were difficult to get through and delayed my return.
Austin was strong, the only E-rank, but there were a lot of beasts sent against them. They had fortifications and fallback lines but if the fight was anything like what I just went through, something bad was bound to happen.
The worry was so great that my wounds were forgotten as I rushed back. The knife in my back ignored and the gashes marring my form were powered through.
It was hard to see the battle lines from where I was because it wasn't the only battle taking place anymore. Everywhere was a battle. Beasts fought each other and the stationary thralls as much as anything else.
It wasn't the obvious front line it had been.
As I neared where they should be, I couldn't help but feel something was wrong. That something had happened while I was away.
Skills and spells still flew through the air from the last line of fortifications we had set up and that was a bad sign already. If they were pushed all the way back there, something went poorly.
I slaughtered my way toward them, decimating any beast in my range while rushing as fast as my legs would take me. Some skills flew in my direction but they weren't hard to deflect.
Exiting the sea of bodies, I saw the rubble the fortifications had been turned into. The wall we originally built was destroyed and in its place were hastily made barricades by either Jonathan or the Earth Mage.
Fires raged and bodies were everywhere. The ground was slick with blood and viscera.
It was hell incarnate.
Humans and beasts alike dotted the landscape and I had to pull myself away from looking for someone I knew among the faces.
Reaching the wall was easy and after they realized who it was, they stopped showering me in attacks. The fighters holding off the beasts didn't look pressured so I left them to it to venture further into the defenses.
After being released from their compulsion, the threat the beasts represented dropped significantly. They didn't operate as one whole army anymore which made it easy to pick them off as they charged.
The warriors could handle it for the moment, I would return after finding out the state of things to finish up.
I couldn't help but note the grim faces they wore and the wounds that covered them. They were fighting the beasts like they had wronged them somehow. With a viciousness that I hadn't seen since... oh no.
No no no no no no.
The last time they had taken a fight that personally was after Granddad.
Bursting through the camp I came upon something that I had been dreading.
The uneasy feelings and the dread I felt on the way here were realized.
In what could only be described as a makeshift field hospital, bodies lay in various states of health. Some had only scrapes and gashes that healers were tending to.
Others were worse.
Others were still, lifeless, and ignored. Without a healer using skills to mend them.
People were dead.
Comments
Demonlord
Thanks for the chapter 😊 A fitting end for the mindbreaker
