CHAPTER 272: MIND STALK APES II

But therein lay the second problem—food.

The apes ate and used their controlled monsters, but the bigger ape felt reluctant to eat this new set of humans it had just brought over.

However, the insistent screaming of his family finally got to him, and he grunted, waving his hands angrily. The ape family screamed for joy and turned on the humans, each struggling to be the first to taste their soft flesh.

It was then that they heard something strange.

"Ah! Really, you’re just going to eat us like that without trying to season us? That’s a great disappointment and insult! Well, not like I know what seasoned human flesh would look like. But still!"

The apes were stunned and froze. They weren’t the only ones; the bigger ape and all the surrounding ones came to a sudden stop in sheer shock.

Vacuse’s voice was so loud and so, so strange. They had never heard any of their controlled monsters talk back to them! Suddenly, every monster—both controlled and apes—turned toward him.

When Vacuse spoke those words earlier, he had already extracted himself from the middle of the dragon hunters and moved far away from them.

The bigger ape that had brought the humans over stared at Vacuse blankly. Then it got angry and screamed, pointing at him. The dragon hunters turned as one, their bloodlust making the air tremble as they prepared to unleash their powers.

At the same time, Vacuse raised his two hands and clapped.

A brief and powerful buildup of energy rolled up within him like a wave and then... disappeared?

But when the energy built up and disappeared, faint lines—like threads—appeared around Vacuse, hanging from him to different places in the lair.

One was connected to the head of the bigger ape, and as they watched, the bigger ape suddenly put its hands on its head and screamed before the head exploded.

The mind stalk apes around were shocked. What had just happened? Did one of them just die—with its head exploding, just like that?

Of course, it wasn’t easy. What made it possible was the fact that the mind stalk apes weren’t in tune with energy; they lacked sensitivity in energy manipulation, perhaps because their powers were linked to the control of the mind.

And their arrogance had blinded them from truly seeing anything. He had embedded his energy into their bodies and slowly worked it toward their heads, where he rapidly charged it at the last moment to cause the explosion.

Before they were truly free from their shock, another series of explosions occurred in the lair as more apes exploded—their heads bursting apart.

Vacuse was only able to kill two more of the bigger apes; the rest were smaller ones. But that was enough to cause chaos. Two sets of monsters that had been under the control of the mind stalk apes suddenly found their free will returned to them, and they did not hesitate to take advantage of it as they immediately began committing carnage.

Vacuse turned to the dragon hunters and pointed, roaring, "Kill them all!"

The dragon hunters were already free from the bondage of mind control when the bigger ape died. The last few seconds had been for them to gather their strength.

Vacuse left them to it while he shouted, "I’ll handle the other bigger apes!"

From the looks of things, the smaller apes would cause trouble of their own and even attack the minds, but it was nothing compared to what the bigger apes could do. And since he was the only one immune to them, he took action immediately.

Vacuse flew across the lair, his body covered in flickering purple and black energy. His eyes locked on another of the bigger apes.

But now that the shock of the attack was wearing off, the mind stalk apes were reorganizing. The remaining monsters under them quickly moved forward to stop Vacuse.

"Don’t worry. I’m going to kill all of you from a distance!" Vacuse shouted as a red beam shot out from his ring and turned into the dragon construct.

With a flap of its wings, the dragon construct sent the small apes flying back as if they weighed nothing. Vacuse himself stood on its back, a grin on his lips as darkness pooled beneath him and a creature dragged itself free from the pool.

Sivan—Vacuse’s void creature—had entered the fight!

But instead of jumping down to join the battle, Sivan dug in his claws and stayed on the back of the dragon construct. Vacuse’s face twisted into a grimace as he began to work his powers in a strange way that he wasn’t used to.

All the while, the dragon construct had taken to the air to avoid the attacks of the monsters reaching him.

"Alright! It should be easy. I’m just going to connect Sivan with the dragon construct and let it use its black fire power! It’s not something overly hard or dangerous, right?"

It wasn’t dangerous, but it was hard—and Vacuse began to sweat as he tried connecting two things he had never done before. Ideally, it should have been easy since the dragon construct was a vessel ready to accept different types of power at any time.

But Sivan wasn’t an intelligent being. He had no will of his own and was absolutely dependent on Vacuse, and that was what made the connection hard.

The dragon hunters were fighting hard, but they couldn’t give it their all as they were wary of the bigger apes coming after them. In fact, they had already gotten out of the lair and were on their way back, retreating fast while they engaged the apes in long-distance battle.

Vacuse, too, kept the five bigger apes that remained busy by making the dragon construct dive down now and then while he hurled void spears at them to keep them back.

And then, he felt something click in his mind as the stone dragon turned from stone into black fire that was amplified by the construct.

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Another day of begging for castle (If you want mass release for it just tell me, no matter the Chapters!!)

I’M TRYING TO GET MY INCOME THIS MONTH!!