CHAPTER 51: NIGHT RAID (3)

"You must have known that there are consequences to your actions, right, Dust?"

All members of Gray Leash had their weapons unsheathed, their spells ready, their abilities on the verge of activating.

One wrong movement and they would all surge towards Ash.

But Ash remained calm.

"Are you really sure you want to do something like that? It would be such a waste for both of us.

I have at least half the number of people you have. And we wouldn’t go down without a fight.

My members might perish, but we will take down at least half of your people.

And that is if you count me out of the fight."

With ex Strong Arm members’ current strength, including Ash’s gift, it was an underestimation of their abilities.

Just from the sheer basic strength and endurance enhancement from Ash’s blessing, the ex Strong Arm’s members would be able to take down more than half of the people surrounding the base.

But no one needed to know that yet.

Hence why Ash told them to stay inside in the first place.

Besides, if it really comes down to a fight, the doppelganger brothers were enough helpers for Ash to finish the fight in record time.

Eben seemed to think about what Ash had said properly. He stayed silent for a quarter of a minute.

"I understand what you mean... Your existence is really a mysterious one. You are even able to convince Jack and the other members to betray us despite them knowing full well what would happen if they did."

Eben’s tone suggested the tension was diminishing.

Ash’s guard relaxed a little. It didn’t seem Eben was a brainless guy.

"It would indeed be a huge loss for the both of us if we forced a fight without knowing your true strength.

You might even manage to deal with all these people I brought with me.

It would be wise for us to avoid an all out fight."

But what happened next caught him by surprise.

"However, that will only be the case if you are in the fight."

Eben’s hands glowed golden.

He raised them and pointed them at Ash.

The golden glow shot forward at an unimaginable speed. It was almost as if it had teleported instead of flying forward.

Even Ash’s eyes were barely able to follow them.

Ash was helpless as the golden glow hit him in the head.

His heart skipped a beat, but Ash trusted his titanroot armor.

No matter how sharp one’s knife or how mana-packed a magical attack was, Ash could rely on the titanroot armor.

But he never expected that there would be nothing happening to him.

He felt no impact, and there was no pain.

But that only stayed that way for the first few seconds.

In the next one, Ash’s mind felt a foreign feeling trying to invade.

A headache began brewing on his forehead, the place where the golden glow had hit him.

He could feel his body fighting back, keeping the invading force on the doorstep of his mind.

Ash soon realized it was a mental attack. He had several mental affecting abilities as well, even one was specifically gave him resistance to mental attacks.

But the fight wasn’t effortless.

Ash’s mind began blanking out for a split second, then returned. It happened at an interval, repeating over and over again.

Unknown forces tried to stop his whole body from moving, trying to freeze his limbs in place.

He even felt the force was trying to take control of whether he could blink his eyes or take a breath.

It was as if it was trying to take control of his whole body, robbing him of his mind and sealing his consciousness.

The unknown power kept trying to break in, constantly screaming in his mind for him to give up.

Instead of reaching his consciousness, the voices reached Ash’s bottom line instead.

"You dare force me to bend down and give up myself!?"

Anger brewed in Ash’s chest.

He worked so hard to crawl out of death’s doorstep.

He literally consumes venoms and poisons to survive the Verdant Necropolis.

And someone dared to take all of his hard work away from him?

The doppelganger brothers felt it, and Keen also felt it.

Ash’s anger spilled onto them.

CAW.

The vine door split apart, revealing three humanoid figures made out of vines dashing straight onto Eben.

Seeing the newcomers, the members of Grey Leash moved.

The closest ones to the doppelganger brothers shot their guns, released their spells, and charged their weapons.

At least a dozen spells and bullets were heading straight towards them.

But a wall of dark brown roots suddenly bloomed from one of the humanoid figures, eating all the attacks without any visible effort.

The attack just arrived, exploded, and disappeared.

The brown roots didn’t even tremble when all the spells crashed against it.

The members stood frozen in place, not believing what their eyes had seen.

But what happened to their attacks soon became the least of their worries.

Without them noticing, their feet were suddenly yanked to the side, breaking their balance and throwing them to the ground.

A web of green vines spread below their feet, holding onto them tightly and keeping them on the ground.

Crimson vines that glowed under the moonlight soon arrived, lashing onto their bodies.

Screams of pain soon adorned the quiet night sky as the Grey Leash members had their blood pooling on the ground and flesh rotting from the necrotic venoms.

Eben would have tried to do something if he saw this, but he was busy with something else.

When the doppelganger brothers made their move, so did Keen.

Activating the Cardinal bird’s ability, Keen flew at breakneck speed.

Arriving in front of Eben and his two bodyguards in barely 2 seconds.

The bodyguard closest to him reacted and swung his sword, trying to slice Keen in two using his own momentum.

But Keen’s sharp eyes saw that coming from a mile away.

Keen opened up his mouth and threw the acid bile straight at the man’s sword.

The magically enchanted, reinforced steel sword managed to stay intact from the acid bile, with only dozens of visible cracks all over the body of the blade.

But the same couldn’t be said for the person who stood right behind the blade.

The sword couldn’t stop any of the acid’s momentum as it flew straight into the man’s face.

White smoke and a foul smell filled the surroundings as the man’s face melted.

Taking away the screams the man released as it ate through the man’s flesh and bones in seconds.

A headless, neckless corpse soon collapsed on the ground, opening the route for Keen to pluck Eben’s eyes with his claws.

Unfortunately for Keen, the second bodyguard with a gun managed to raise his gun in time and fired his bullet.

Keen noticed it a moment too late and managed to divert the shot aimed at his face to his wing instead.

He would regenerate the wound in seconds with the slug’s regeneration, and he could still throw an acid bile towards Eben, but Ash stopped him.

"Let me do the honor, Keen. Heal yourself up first."

With Ash’s command, Keen used the Cardinal bird’s ability once more and disappeared from everyone’s eyes.

With Keen gone, Eben finally had the time to take a quick look at his front and to his surroundings.

One of his most powerful bodyguards, a high tier 2 awakened, the same level as Jack, had been killed without being able to put up a single fight.

The pained screams of his members still filled the area as they were all scattered on the ground.

Losing all common sense and the ability to think as their blood dyed the ground red and their bodies rotting at a visible pace.

He knew that this couldn’t continue.

Words formed on his throat.

But before he could speak them out loud, something gripped his neck tight.

It wasn’t an ability, but instead, his instincts screaming at him when he felt the amount of mana coming out of Ash’s body.

It was an amount he could only ever dream of having.

The mana soon spread to the surroundings, as if changing the air around him.

And it wasn’t only his feelings.

Eben’s vision started shaking. His head spinning.

It took him a tremendous effort just to keep standing still.

The nausea he felt alone was enough to make him pass out in a minute or two.

But that wasn’t the end.

At first, the skin all over his body began itching, as if something had latched onto it.

But then it became worse.

The itch evolved to feel like needles poking his skin from head to toe.

And not ending there, the needles turned to knives as he felt his body being flayed alive.

His body finally gave up and fell.

Even the sensation of his body falling to the ground caused his body to feel like his bones had broken and his muscles were bruised.

Even the slightest bit of touch caused great pain to his body.

And with the intense nausea he felt, he couldn’t even notice whether he moved his own body or not.

Everything seemed to spin, his senses felt numb, yet the pain was more present than ever.

In this moment, the releasing embrace of death began to show its allure to him.

Anything was better than what he felt at that moment.

But as an awakened with a mental affecting ability himself, Eben managed to keep a tiny bit of his consciousness, and realized that a lot of what he felt was caused by a mental attack.

But knowing that didn’t change anything.

He couldn’t do anything against a mental attack when he barely managed to remember his name.

But there’s one thing he knew that he could do. An act that might possibly save his life.

Without a shred of hesitation, Eben forced his face to dig into the ground.

Eating the sand and dirt on the unpaved road, and screamed with all the remaining strength in his body.

"I GIVE UP! PLEASE! FORGIVE ME! I BEG YOU! FORGIVE ME!"