Chapter 102

As I slipped into the basement —which was thankfully empty other than a magically-reinforced cage, currently empty— the first thing I noticed was the suppressive aura of magic that somehow wanted me to throw up. There was a sense of wrongness in the air, one I had never felt before, not even I was facing against the necromancers.

Somehow, whatever was the source, it managed to feel more disgusting than the combined aura of an army of necromancers.

My first suspect was the cage and the unusual magical runes that surrounded it. But, as I walked closer toward the cage, I realized it wasn't the source. Like the wards that covered the building, the runic structure of the ward was completely unfamiliar yet complete in a way that suggested a great body of supporting research and practice. But despite the mystery it contained, it wasn't the source of my discomfort.

No, the source was radiating from upstairs.

I was rather glad for my great agility as I silently walked toward the stairs that led to the upstairs, doing my best to hide my presence. Luckily, the door to the upstairs was open, allowing me to peek inside.

Inside, I noticed three people, sitting silently around a table with faces of stone. One of them had a staff leaning against himself, while the other two were dressed like ordinary peasants —but my eyes were sharp enough to identify an impressive number of hidden weapons under their clothes. They looked ready to act. On the table lay another gem, driving the crazed monsters to attack the town.

However, I was more interested in the passive aura that was spreading out of them that made me queasy rather than their selection of the weapon.

They were dangerous, dangerous enough to trigger my instincts to the limit.

Almost an hour passed in silence as I watched them, trusting my instincts about the danger they represented. I was sure that they represented the danger against Titania, and I decided to wait until they decided to act, allowing me to ambush them. The way they were dressed suggested that the mage would stay behind.

Then, my prediction turned to be true as the assassin-looking types suddenly stood up without talking and walked toward the door. Watching the way they moved, I was glad that I didn't try to attack them, because the grace they displayed suggested that they had a significantly high stat spread. I was lucky that I didn't attack them. Not because I was afraid of failing to take them down, but I was sure that I couldn't take them down without making a huge commotion, especially if the mage had the opportunity to trigger the wards.

Luckily, the assassins have left using the main door, leaving the mage alone.

I used the shadows of the room to close into the mage, grabbing a dagger reverse. The mage stayed focused on the wards, until I was behind him. The closer I got, the more disgusted I was getting. Something was wrong with the mage, though I didn't know what.

Then, without a warning, I slammed the dagger to his temple, trying to deal a blow that would take him down without killing him.

Unfortunately, after slamming, the response I received was not the one I was looking for. He stumbled a bit, then a flare of magic started to gather. His Constitution was much stronger than I had been expecting, especially for a mage. I slammed the dagger again, this time hard enough to slam him against the wall, and he responded with a flood of arcana magic missiles, traveling toward me in a scary manner.

I erected a shield to block it as I dashed forward once more, still determined to take him down without killing.

[-195 Mana]

Despite the hurried manner he let out of his magic, the resulting spells were much stronger than I had been expecting. His physical stats were strong, but his magical stats were much stronger. Not to the point of eclipsing me, but the simple fact that they were comparable carried many dangerous implications.

So, I used my speed to the limit, arriving in front of him before he could finish casting his next spell, and slammed my dagger to his heart, stretching my magic to the limit as I did so. The blow itself was strong enough to kill The impact of the blow slammed him against the wall, a spray of blood spilling from his wound, while a second one spilled out of his mouth, suggesting a deadly blow.

I jumped forward as I raised my weapon again, ready to lash out. "Don't make a move, and you might just live," I said. I put my hand on his body, flooding his body with biomancy energy, but not the healing kind. Instead, I was forcing his body to stop, preventing him from reacting, barely conscious.

[-912 Mana]

He collapsed. Then, I used my mana to slip inside his soul space, curious about his exact strength.

Only to meet with the most disgusting sight I had ever witnessed.

Soul space was an abstract concept, therefore hard to explain in terms of physical terms, but the easiest way to describe my target was food. A soul space was supposed to be like a lean steak, whole, pristine, colored with occasional marbling of skills and achievement that nonetheless looked natural.

The soul space of my target could be best described as a poorly-mixed vegetable meatball. It was a cacophony of pieces coming from different sources, barely clamped together with ominously throbbing magical links, crawling as disgusting as an insect nest trying to finish a carcass before hyenas could take their turn.

There were three things that I noticed immediately. First, the soul space was clearly artificial, and created by a sick mind. Second, despite its disgusting and unstable nature, it was clearly strong. With a glance, I could identify many skills and stats, definitely over level thirty, maybe even over forty.

However, the third point was more important. The moment my target noticed my intrusion, he triggered a complicated seal in the center of his soul space, and the whole thing started collapsing.

"Fuck," I murmured as I took a step back, creating another, even stronger shield around the target to contain the inevitable explosion. He turned into a fine mist of blood mixed with mana, expanding outward while my arcana shield wrapped around, the second layer of earth shield to support. It started cracking, and I started pushing a lot of mana to keep it contained.

[-1614 Mana]

[+2 Arcana]

The explosion finally stopped, and I collapsed, breathing hard. That was closer than I had been hoping. Unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of time to waste. I had no idea whether the assassins could feel the demise of their teammate, and if they did, whether it would change their strategy. They might try to escape, or even worse, they might decide to take Titania down permanently rather than imprisoning her. And, I wasn't willing to let her test herself against two assassins of unknown strength when she already exhausted herself against two different monster hordes.

On the positive side, it wasn't exactly difficult to follow the assassins. I just needed to follow the disgusting metaphorical sensation spreading from their mutilated soul space.

After taking the magical gem and dispelling the spell that was driving the monsters to attack the city furiously, of course. Not that it would change a lot of things at this point, every little bit helped.

As I followed the trail of the assassins, my mind was on the newest mystery I faced. What I had just seen in the soul space of the mage before his death was another huge mystery, one that I suspected that would have been rewarded with achievement if I hadn't already depleted the power of my unique system without meaning to.

Still, even without a clue, it wasn't hard to guess that it was a momentous discovery. There was a group present that was rather capable in terms of manipulating soul spaces. They were not exactly smooth, but considering they were able to send three people for a mission, each strong enough to be a mover and shaker even in the important places like the Capital, or Silver Spires.

And if they were sending three of them to a mission, combined with their artificial nature, it implied that they might have many more people in matching capabilities. Combine that with their dubious alliance with the necromancers and their courage to openly target both the princess of a royal family and Silver Spires at the same time...

The implications were not nice...

I managed to find the assassins as they were skulking in a corner near the walls, watching Titania as she used her light spells against the last few monsters that remained. Apparently, the battle was about to come to an end. No doubt they had moved.

Under different circumstances, I would have let them take action, but I was afraid of them having collaborators that might attack Titania while I dealt with them. Instead, I decided to be decisive, and once again tapped the city wards, extending the defensive structure around them.

A minute later, one of the assassins was suddenly alerted, but it was too late. I used a burst of elemental mana to fill the magical moat I created around them with flames, dumping as much mana as I could manage, the plume climbing to the sky.

[-2612 Mana]

The cries rose around from the defenders, shocked by the sudden burst of magic. Titania turned toward me as well, so I sent her a magical message. "Don't worry about the flames. I'll visit you after you go to your room," I told her.

"Focus on the outer defenses, the flame is from the wards," she cried, following my suggestion despite her shock at my presence, and pulling the focus of the defenders to the walls once again. Meanwhile, I turned my attention back to the assassins, who were having trouble handling the sudden ambush as they tried to get out of the trap created by the wards.

Unfortunately, it was too late as they were burned by the wards. I used Tantric to slip into the soul space of one of them, only to find a disgusting mess. And once again, it triggered another self-destruct, showing their commitment to keeping their nature hidden.

Luckily, unlike the previous explosion, I didn't need to contain it completely. Just channeling it toward the sky to mix the inferno that was already going on had been enough...

With the assassins dealt in, I left Titania alone on the walls and returned to the safe house, hoping to find some clue from the wards they left around the house...

[Level: 30 Experience: 447193 / 465000

Strength: 41 Charisma: 53

Precision: 35 Perception: 37

Agility: 35 Manipulation: 40

Speed: 34 Intelligence: 44

Endurance: 34 Wisdom: 46

HP: 5370 / 5370 Mana: 4213 / 6600 ]

SKILLS

Master Melee [100/100]

Master Tantric [100/100]

Master Biomancy [100/100]

Master Elemental [100/100]

Master Subterfuge [97/100]

Master Arcana [97/100]

Expert Speech [70/75]

Advanced Craft [50/50]

PERKS

Mana Regeneration

Skill Share

Empowerment (1/1)

Teleportation

COMPANIONS

[Cornelia - Level 21/25]

[Helga - Level 17/21]