Rueben slipped and then fell asleep as Gwynne grabbed a sharp rock into her hands and threw it towards— Gwynne stabbed her leg immediately as soon as she felt that she went into a daze.
Hershey smiled at her, "Did you think i have to speak my spells outloud in order for my Concept to work?"
Gwynne narrowed her eyes as she felt her leg swirm, she then swiftly ran towards her when Rueben suddenly grabbed her. She hurriedly turned around before getting hit with a fist straight to her chin.
Her legs wobbled for a moment before her knees gave out, and she fell down. Her entire sight turned blurry, her entire head dizzy from the hit.
"I heard getting hit in the chin hurts a lot."
She heard Hershey speak as Rueben slowly raised his arms, holding a large rock.
Gwynne stared at him, then smiled.
The few times they were hurt or died, they reset to the beginning. It happened quite a few times now, and she was sure that whatever Hershey's concept was, it must have something to do with the mind. She believed that this round would still be the same as the previous ones.
That was what she had thought when she suddenly saw Hershey smile at her in amusement. Then she woke up from a daze and swiftly rolled to the side to dodge Rueben's attack.
"Oh~. How quick."
Quickly standing up, Gwynne just had turned her head up only to be met with Hershey's face close to hers, then a stab on her stomach.
Gwynne felt a churning sensation on her throat, and she threw up blood as Hershey dodged to the side. Rueben had already awoken and had hurriedly tried to hit Hershey only for her to dodge.
Then he bit his thumb and forced his thumb inside Gwynne's mouth as blood spilt out of the wound. Gwynne drank the blood and felt the wound on her stomach move as it slowly healed.
Gwynne was about to thank Rueben when he suddenly punched her in the stomach, Gwynne wasn't able to stiffen her abdomen in time and she flew a few meters away as she saw Rueben getting backstabbed straight on his heart.
Rueben woke up only after he threw up blood on both his mouth and nostrils. He stood still for a moment before scooping up some of his blood that spilt and drank it all, healing him immediately.
Hershey clicked her tongue as she gave them a look of annoyance.
"To think the both of you have already been tainted by the fallen god's blood to this extent..."
'Using my Domain is implausible, they will wake up in a mere moment just like back then. Most of my spells would work but they can quickly regather their thoughts, making it hard for me to get an effective attack in unless given the chance...'
Just as she was thinking, she suddenly turned around and looked at her chair, specifically at Gwynne who had grabbed her weapons and already pointing the flintlock towards her.
'How..!!' Hershey's eyes widened but then narrowed.
'That punch? Did she get punched into that direction on purpose, thus giving her the time to get her weapons while I'm focused on stabbing the Hunter... But how did they even manage to do that?'
Gwynne smiled as she gripped the trigger of the flintlock. Hershey moved to dodge when she felt her arms tied, she hurriedly looked down to see two arms wrapping themselves unto her.
Then she turned around to see Rueben behind her, hugging her in place.
The bullet swiftly flew across the air and hit her on her chest where her heart lies.
Hershey coughed up black ink like blood.
She kneeled down as Rueben caught the flintlock that Gwynne threw towards him, already reloaded and ready to go. Rueben looked down at her for a moment, then touched his chest as blood sipped from the corners of his nostrils.
He only wiped the blood away and aimed the nozzle of the gun straight unto Hershey's head.
Hershey looked up towards him, before chuckling.
"How did you do it?" She asked in a condescending tone.
Gwynne came right to Rueben's side while rubbing her stomach, then she gave her a smile and squatted down.
"Come to think of it, Hypnosis is not your Concept, isn't it? Because if it were so, then you would've just made us kill ourselves in the first place and be done with it. And even then, there would be some certain conditions that you must abide in order to use the power of your Concept, thus forcing you to choose how to use your power wisely."
Gwynne adressed Hershey as she pushed some of her hair strands to the back of her ear.
"There would be more Concepts that could display similar effects to that supernatural powers of yours but there is one that has small limitations yet have a wide variety of options to use if you know what to do."
Hershey smiled and turned her head to Gwynne, "So?"
"Compelling." Gwynne answered with a smile.
Then she turned her head up to look at Rueben, who opened his mouth to speak, "Hypnosis means that you have to force someone to do your bidding, not really that subtle of an effect that Compelling does to someone."
Then he also squatted down while pointing the gun towards Hershey's head while Gwynne was prepared to stab him in the leg if he became dazed.
He continued speaking, "Its quite obvious if you really think about it, and if you hadn't told us about your supernatural powers, using the powers of Concepts, then we might have lost here instead of you."
"If you had forced your way into someone's mind, that would have made the people you want to hypnotise subconsciously try to defend themselves, thus making it harder for you to really control them in the heat of battle. Persuasion itself would not work as it would force you to use your words to "convince" someone to trip or go to sleep."
"So it boils down to Compelling. Its both subtle and, from your case, quite easy and fast to use. And we wouldn't really detect anything that easily, after all, we are compelled to do that certain action, our minds itself would think that it was a rational and good thought."
Gwynne then smiled as she turned to Hershey, "If you hadn't used your powers so much infront of us, we would have been the one who lost."
Hershey stared at them for a moment, as if thinking, then as if she understood, she let out a chuckle.
"If Frotus was here, he would've already killed the both of you." Her eyes narrowing as black ink sipped from the edges of her eyes.
Then she looked up and looked directly at Rueben's eyes, his red crimson eyes glowing in the dark. As if a beast trying to free itself from a cage that it once got out from.
Then she turned to the three spirits following Rueben, who were also staring at her intently. She smiled and let out a laugh.
Rueben and Gwynne readied themselves in case of another attack.
Soon, her laughter died down as her entire face bled of black ink. She stared at the two of them, then gave them a grin.
"Hunter." She addressed Rueben, "Do you want to know how to unlock the gate behind me?"
Rueben's eyes narrowed into a slit in suspicion, he turned to Gwynne, who confirmed that he was still okay and turned back to Hershey before nodding his head.
Hershey smiled, then turned to Gwynne. She stared at her for a moment, then chuckled intensely, "Be careful what you wish for, woman."
Then she turned to Rueben, leaving Gwynne confused at her sudden warning. Gwynne tried to react but felt that it was not the right time to throw a tantrum and hope that Rueben would side with her, so she shut her mouth up and waited.
Rueben intently stared at her eyes as Hershey closed them.
"Any words you want to say to me?"
Hershey heard those and just grinned.
"Nothing really." Then her entire chest suddenly slit open as black goo rose up from her chest, "The way to open that door...."
The black goo slowly formed into something as Rueben knelt down while his entire face was covered in blood, bleeeding out in all orifices while Gwynne swiftly knelt, her head to the ground, as she shivered.
The entire place was slowly filled with a black miasma, forming a thick fog of black pollution as the black goo slowly formed into something.
"....Over my dead body." Hershey said her final words and lied down with a thud, then she stopped moving entirely.
Rueben stared at the being, his entire eyes glowed intensely as he gazed upon the being that had formed from the black goo. A deformed slimy humanoid inky thing was formed from Hershey's corpse.
The humanoid flinched at first, then it turned its head to look around before finally stopping its gaze towards Rueben. And the flesh of a halo hovering above his head as pointed the flintlock towards the thing.
The thing stopped for a moment, then its empty eyes sockets curled into crescents as a deformed smile formed on her face.
[Oh no...]
It says as Gwynne felt her ears ring, so much so that her eardrums bursts with a loud pop as blood spilled from her ears.
[You found me.]
"I found you."
Two beings.
A God and a mortal stared each other down.
One staring amused while the other staring with pure euphoria of hatred.