Chapter 35 - Underset

Alex was out before she could even collect her thoughts. He left her behind in a pool of her emotions and unanswered questions. He truly was a mystery. Here she was, clearly about to give him the location to the one thing he desired the most, and he had chosen to takeoff instead?! Scarlett was now convinced that she had completely misjudged him. Never in her life had she been more wrong about a person. Alex was a different breed.

On the other hand, the sex god had an emergency that simply could not wait.

While Scarlett had been talking, he had suddenly sensed that someone had broken into his house! There was no way he could be in two places at the same time, so he decided there and then that Scarlett was going to have to wait. He had to deal with the intruder. Hence, his hurried departure. The moment he was in a place where no cameras or human could see him, he teleported right back to his home.

Without even a single sound, he reappeared at the back of a man in dark shades, searching frantically for something in his bedroom with a flashlight. The foolish intruder was completely oblivious of the fact that another presence with him in the room that had materialized from thin air. So, when the authoritative voice of the home owner sounded from behind him, he nearly jumped out of his own body.

"Evening gentleman."

The man was so startled, even the way he turned back looked funny.

But he was no amateur. Alex had taken him by surprise, but the intruder apparently had a few tricks up his sleeve. Despite the fact that someone had managed to creep up on him (even though the door was firmly lookced) he quickly regained his composure at a commendable speed.

He lifted up his free palm to his mouth and started whispering.

Alex immediately discerned that the intruder was muttering incantations. And the main purpose was to force him into some kind of hypnosis. Of course such a low level spell could not have any effect on him. If he had been a normal person, maybe it would have worked. Alex was amused. This was definitely not the everyday robber. Alex wholeheartedly welcomed the challenge. It had been a while since he had had to use his power like this.

So, much to the dismay of the enchanter, Alex smiled and took a step forward. The man did not even have time to prepare a counter or fortify himself before Alex rebounded back the low-level hypnisis spell on him with three times its original potency. It was every spell caster's nightmare.

Now in full control, Alex started to question him;

"What do you come here for?"

He promptly answered like a dummy; "I came here to steal the Cursed Blade."

Now it was Alex's turn to be shook. Someone thought he had the blade?

"Why do you want it so bad? What is that that you people want with the blade?"

"I don't know. I only take orders. I don't really know anything about the Cursed Blade."

Hypnosis was a sure way to get the truth out of a person. But this particular hypnosis spell had been cast by a god, and had three times the usual potency. So, there was no way any human could walk around it. This guy was telling the truth.

Eyeing him warily, he issued his next question;

"How is it that you how to use enchantments?"

No answer.

Alex rephrased the question and asked him a more direct one;

"That spell you just tried to cast, where did you learn it from? Who taught it to you?"

Still, the man remained silent. Alex's own reflection stared back at him in the guy's dark shades. The fact was Alex was curious. He wanted to savor all the clues this intruder had to offer. He was not desperate. If he was pressed for time, he would have employed other means to obtain answers.

Seeing that it was impossible for a person to either avoid or subvert the truth while under hypnosis, the only other option was that the man had probably spelled himself earlier on to protect himself from situations such as this. There were a number of things that could be done to achieve this. He might have sealed off parts of his own memories, or he might have bound himself to some kind of oath that prevented him spilling sensitive information.

Whatever it was, all indications showed that this was definitely no random infiltrator.

Alex's state of mind moved from being curious to inquiry. He resorted to the one thing he could do that was sure to bring results. In a fraction of his second, he activated Eye of god, and forced his way into the deepest reaches of the mind of the hypnotized man. If he could search the man's most recent memories, there would surely be answers.

But as it turned out, the man seemed to have been prepared for this as well. His mind was also spelled!

Had Alex been a low level sorcerer, his invasion into the man's mind would have been halted by a thick strong wall. The perfect illustration would be that of a small horde of mongols being held off by The Great Wall of China. But Alex was a god, and that automatically meant that his power was on another level.

So, instead of being met by a wall, the destructive impact of his invasive forceful will met with the fortified wall of mental protection. The result was too much for the fragile mind of the human. The man in the dark shades collapsed. As he dropped to the floor, his dark shades crushed upon contact with the ground. Sending bits and pieces of glass into his forehead, ear, and eyes. This pain, coupled with the accompanying ache of having smashed his skull on the marble floor, did nothing to stir the man from the coma he had just entered.

Alex did not attempt to rouse him. There was no point.

About a second before the stranger fell, Alex realized that he had misread all the signs. It was actually kind of a twist. It turned out that the spell was not meant to protect the man at all, it had been done by someone else to protect themselves by preventing any sorcerer from accessing his memories.

Alex took a closer look and exhaled deeply. Things had gotten a little bit more interesting- huge chunks of the man's soul were missing! No, not missing, stolen. It was not a protective spell after all. Some astute magic user had forcibly ripped off parts of the man's mind, leaving him at home as a mere vegetable that was barely alive. This was not the work of someone without skill.

Within the past twenty four hours, things had significantly gotten more interesting.

But so far, this was the crowning jewel of it all. Instead of being worried, he found himself getting kind of excited. Alex now had an adversary. He did not know much, but from the look of things, it looked like the force -or forces- behind this man still thought he had the original aritifact!

This was particularly interesting, because it now placed the mysterious organization called New Order as the real manipulator behind the scenes.

This was a lot. Alex walked away from the unconscious body on the ground, and made his way in the darkness towards the balcony. He slid open the sliding doors and stood there, overlooking the fine view of the city at night, while he pondered on everything that had happened so far. He adjusted his coat as a gust of cold wind caught him squarely in the chest.

The road ahead looked like it was going to be an interesting one. With this new development, he was sure that his short stay on earth was definitely going to be anything but boring. He was right. But at that time, he did not know just how right he was.

..............

That night, Alex went to bed with his head swimming. Once again, his usual dreamless sleep was plagued by a series of dreams that his consciousess could not reconcile with his mind. He opened his eyes the following morning, and laid there in that exact position for close to twenty minutes as he battled with his own memories, fighting to recall even the slightest parts of his dreams.