The fireball shot by Mar hit the blackish blue ball, causing it to explode and black goo like substance was splattered all over the place, dissolving even the sand that it fell on.
"Kill them." Kane gave the order in a grim tone as he prepared to fire multiple spells at once.
The fight continued for a long time, and even though they suffered a few casualties, the dark dawn guild's magi gained the upper hand in battle,
'Is this the end?' Kane thought as he looked at the tentacles surrounding him and the others, they no longer had much spiritual force left, thus making them completely defenseless at the moment.
He was about to self-destruct his body along with others to cause as much damage as possible but suddenly, he saw a magus arrive there in the form of a ray of black light.
The magus had black wavy hair, jet black eyes and a black magus robe that fluttered in the wind.
"Die." The magus murmured as thousands of dark blades emerged and shot towards the tentacles.
*Shii*
The tentacles that once had tenacious vitality and were hard as steel were being cut like butter, not regenerating at all.
This magus in black robes was, naturally, Tirus.
"Lord…" Kane widened his eyes along with the remaining three magi, their expressions full of admiration.
"Kane, and you all, recover your spiritual force as fast as you can, we have an army to fight."
"Army?" Kane murmured in confusion.
"Yes, that Mar is storing lifeforms inside his body, possibly his descendants." Tirus said with an expressionless face as he snapped his fingers and a crystal membrane covered the surrounding area, isolating them from the outside.
…
Far away in the desert,
'There's no exit…shit.' This thought, although short, brought Mar endless anxiety, 'What will happen if I can't escape? Dying isn't an option, but what can I possibly do?'
Just as he was contemplating his future actions, he sensed five magi approaching him at a very high speed.
"Hey, fellow magus, I heard you troubled my subordinates a bit?" Tirus asked with a playful expression on his face while stopping his movement mid-air, several meters away from Mar.
"Fellow magi, you see, things happened and I had no choice but to do that to save myself." Mar replied almost immediately, rubbing his nose while keeping his usual smile on his face.
"...I can understand, fellow magi, I think we should still co-operate a bit."
"Huh?..." Hearing Tirus's next words, he had to say that he was somewhat surprised. 'Quite an interesting fella.' He thought as he continued, "Fellow magi, you see, I've searched this entire desert and found no exit, we have no chance of escaping and this plane is losing its vitality as well , I say we should just, you know, go down in peace."
"Hahaha, Fellow magi, didn't you notice something strange?" Tirus laughed at Mar's suggestion and continued, "These tentacles are absorbing all the vitality, and spiritual force of its prey, all of this must go somewhere, right?"
The dark dawn guild's magi were as just as clueless as Mar, this was the first time their leader had brought up this topic.
Mar's eyes widened in astonishment as he said, "But I searched for something that could be used as a core, but found nothing."
"It should be underground." Tirus said while pointing downwards, "It must've been concealed in a way through which it would be impossible for others to find it using ordinary means, luckily, I have my methods."
The 'other method' he was talking about was obviously the A.I. chip, but Mar didn't bother to ask about those 'methods' of his since all magi had their secrets, inquiring about them would usually be a form of disrespect.
"Okay, then." Mar nodded his head as he closed his eyes and, in a few seconds, thousands of silhouettes that resembled him appeared all around him and burrowed deep underground to find anything resembling a formation.
This spell was actually quite special, it could make clones of oneself, but these clones exited only for a short period of time before being destroyed, but these clones could pass through almost all kinds of barriers and send the collected information to the spell caster once they were destroyed. Even if Tirus didn't come to ask for an alliance, he would still have used this spell.
"I'll go in myself." Tirus turned around and looked at the magi from the dark dawn guild before snapping his fingers and creating an unending pit.
In the next moment, he turned into a ray of black light and entered the pit, spreading his spiritual sense as well as letting the A.I. chip scan its surroundings.
After half a day,
Tirus had reached the depths of this semi-plane and had searched almost all of the semi-plane but had found nothing, but he kept searching as this was his only hope.
'I hope my guess is correct.' He thought with a bitter expression. Suddenly, he sensed something coming towards him
*chomp*
It was a tentacle with a mouth the size of a football and with the radiation equal to that of a semi-converted rank 1 magus.
'Weak.' Tirus let his radiation flow freely and within seconds, the tentacle was reduced to ashes.
'Wait…so many of them?' His body jolted as he felt the presence of thousands of tentacles, with quite a few of them being at the peak of rank 1. He knew he couldn't fight all of them and thus, he increased his speed as much as he could to get away from them.
He didn't really need to fear them, but fighting them in such a closed place could be quite difficult.
After a few hours, the A.I. chip gave him a prompt.
[Beep! A formation has been detected]
[Scan the formation, Yes/No]
'Yes.'
He quickly went in the direction of the formation and saw a giant circular cavity, there, he found a dome like structure, surrounded with dense and complicated formation patterns as well as tentacles connected to it like veins to one's heart.
A few minutes later,
[Beep! The formation has been completely scanned]
'This completely negates all the external spiritual force, no wonder we weren't able to find it through normal means.' He thought as he made a grabbing motion in the air once the A.I. chip gave him the prompt. The surroundings started to shake violently.
The circular dome's formation patterns glowed in a golden light as a 3-meter hole appeared on it.
'Looks bigger from the inside.' After entering it, he felt amused by the size of this place. It looked like a football platform with dense formations carved all over the ground, at the center was an altar with a huge, egg-like structure.
What Tirus saw inside that egg shocked him to no end.
Inside that egg-like structure was a soul, the soul looked like an adult human from the outside, curled up in a fetal position. Its spiritual force had actually crossed the level of mid-level morning star magi, however, this was simply a soul and did not have a physical body, it was the one controlling those tentacles, somehow this soul still hadn't consolidated its point mass yet his soulforce was extremely close to the threshold of a rank 4 magus, if Tirus gave him a little more time, then this would be his end as soulforce could be used to immediately kill anyone who hadn't cultivated it.
'As I thought, this magus wasn't really concerned about the region from which the inheritors were chosen, he simply wanted a specific number of them.' He thought, coming to a realization and ordered the A.I. chip, "A.I. chip, scan."
[Begining scan 10%…34.32%…56%…78%…89%…98%…99.99%…100%…scan complete]
Before Tirus could respond to the A.I. chip's prompt, he saw the soul staring at him with its one eye, with seemed to be in a blood-red color.
'You actually managed to find this place?'
Tirus felt the soul talk to him through a voice transmission, but before he could say anything, he saw countless tentacles coming at him with their mouth wide open.
'Oh god.' Tirus grunted internally as he dodged the attacks of the tentacles. If this guy had cultivated soulforce, then Tirus would have immediately fled as soul force could be used to instantly kill anyone who didn't cultivate it.
"A.I. chip, is it possible to take control of it?"
[Yes]
"Then…" Large amounts of dark clouds were emitted from Tirus's body as it covered the entire egg, at first, there was some retaliation from the soul inside the egg, but, it couldn't protect itself from the A.I. chip's complicated way of taking control over it.
Coupled with the fact that it was simply a soul, unable to cast spells, it wasn't difficult for Tirus to take control even though the latter had his soul at the level of a morning star magus.
After battling for half an hour, the A.I. chip finally gave the prompt Tirus was waiting for.
[Beep! Host has taken control over the egg, now the host can take the soul's place]
"Mm." He murmured in a low voice and took out his magical rings, and storage pouch, in the next moment, he was inside the egg.
'Argh!' Tirus screamed internally as he felt the fluid inside the egg slowly burning his body, he still steeled his will and made a hand sign, opened his mouth to let the fluid enter his body while destroying the soul that was already present there. It was a pity he couldn't devour this little soul.
…
He felt as if he had no ears, yet he heard everything.
He felt as if he had no eyes, yet saw everything.
He felt as if he didn't have a physical body, yet he felt an insatiable hunger from the depths of his soul.
'Who am I?' He thought as he emitted a faint blue light. Suddenly, information flooded his mind.
'… I am…human.'
'I am Tirus. Yes, I now remember everything, but where am I?'
Time didn't mean anything at this point, and Tirus's consciousness continued to flow in the vast darkness.
'A.I. chip, A.I. chip! Answer.' He tried screaming but the A.I. chip didn't answer, however, it seemed as if the A.I. chip understood what Tirus wanted, and he saw the vast void around him shatter.
'What the hell? What have I become?' He shouted internally as he felt his countless tentacles and mouths.
[Beep! The host's soul is in an unknown state. Scan Yes/No]
'Yes.'
[…]
[Beep! Host's previous body has completely melted.
And now has the body of the tentacle monster]
'That I can tell, damn it!' He couldn't help but get a little irritated. No matter how sophisticated a machine was, it was still a machine.
Just as he was struggling to feel his new body fully, he felt as if there was a flood of information in his head. The tentacle monster was spread all over this 1.5 million km² secret plane and now, Tirus could use his countless new 'mouths' to feed on the millions of lifeforms here.
Although this looked like a tentacle monster, however, it was actually a monster created by the ancient magus Plaguemancer. This monster could shape-shift according to its will, but had little intelligence. It could, however, be controlled like one controlled a machine.
"I…know what to do." The ancient magus wanted to use this as a way to revive himself, stronger than ever, but since Tirus had taken his place, he was going to reap the rewards of the ancient magi's planning.
To be continued…