Chrysos clutched his chest. His whole body was hurting all over. He drank a Divinious recovery potion and a healing potion before running towards where Rafouri crashed.
Chrysos saw a crater where Rafouri's body could be seen.
Rafouri lost his right arm, both of his legs and his face was severely burnt.
Chrysos couldn't walk steadily. His body limped from time to time
Rafouri heard something and opened his left eye. He could see a silhouette holding a sword from the crater. He laughed bitterly.
"Just... kill me." Rafouri muttered with short breaths.
Chrysos sighed. "You gave me some trouble back there.. I'm sorry but, from your race and mine, you know that the need to eliminate each other for survival is crucial, right?"
"Of course... to kill and be killed, that is the way of the Divine Lands.." Rafouri closed his eyes. "If only my race... reincarnates in a better place, without Divinious .."
Chrysos shook his head. "How do you know the human language?"
Rafouri chuckled weakly. "Ask the masked man… he told us… that this strength he gave us, has a price.."
"And that price is… to kill humans.."
As he said that, Rafouri stopped breathing and his body slowly turned black before turning into a pile of dust except for his head.
Chrysos removed his mask. "A world without Divinious? I've been there before.. and the need for one race to dominate still exists.." Chrysos took Rafouri's head and left the crater.
Rumble...
Many goblins were still on their way to support the generals, but when they saw the battlefield, they found Chrysos with the bodies of their beloved generals. What's even more disheartening for them was the head Chrysos was holding.
"King Rafouri!!" A goblin shouted in grief.
All the goblins felt like they lost their strength. They didn't even have the morale to fight anymore. They were all frozen in despair.
Chrysos knew this and attacked.
He killed them not because of mercy, but because of necessity.
All the goblins perished not too long after.
Chrysos wiped his sword and sheathed it.
He went to Meiros' hiding spot and saw that Meiros was cooking two small birds in a bonfire.
"Master? You're back?" Meiros looked up and saw Chrysos.
"So here's where you've been while I'm killing the beasts." Chrysos sat down and examined the bird that Meiros was cooking.
"I'm sorry Master, I just got tired and wanted to rest." Meiros scratched his head awkwardly.
"It's alright" Chrysos replied with a shrug. "Anyways, did you see what happened there?"
"If you mean how you defeated everyone there, I saw it." Meiros ate the bird's leg while speaking. "I helped a bit by controlling some greenflesh beasts and forcing them to fight each other."
"No wonder the reinforcements were so delayed." Chrysos realized this and used his fist to knock on Meiros' shoulder. "Good job."
"Hehe.." Meiros smiled and scratched the back of his head after being praised.
"Alright, let's go home. I got you some weapons and armor from the trip." Chrysos grabbed a cloth tied with a rope and gave it to Meiros.
Meiros untied the rope and saw an iron chestplate, two iron pauldrons, two iron bracers, and two bronze boots. Of course he was given an iron sword that Chrysos found that was still in great condition. It was most likely from another adventurer or someone that the goblins have slain.
"Woah, this is amazing. Thank you master!" Meiros put the armor on and swung the sword excitedly.
Chrysos watched Meiros play around for a while and said, "You know, I thought that you've never killed before. So I thought that you wouldn't be able to get over it in a short time."
"I've seen my mother die as a kid. It did scare me for a while until I got my Divinious awakened. It seems that psychics get over things emotionally faster." Meiros shrugged. "It was a sad memory, but she told me something before as a kid that I remember for some reason.."
"And what's that?" Chrysos replied.
"It's better to move forward than staying in the past. I don't know how I still remember that, but her voice soothes me." Meiros had a warm reminiscing expression on his face.
Gerald was reminded of his own mother. He smiled and said in a soft tone. "Your mother... Is a good person."
Chrysos then patted Meiros' back. "Alright, let's go home."
"Okay master." Meiros laughed.
"So, what do you want for dinner?" Chrysos wanted to treat himself and Meiros after this difficult trip.
"Hmm... let me think." Meiros thought held his new sword. "What about Goat Edlari?"
"Sure." Chrysos didn't mind
...
Ironmountain, Chrysos' residence...
Meiros was in his room reading all the books available. Actually, it wouldn't be called reading, it was more like scanning the contents. Meiros could remember everything in perfect accuracy if he was given at least a second to see and register the information properly.
Meanwhile, Chrysos was in the kitchen worrying about something.
Taking a deep breath, Chrysos opened a bottle filled with human blood. Human blood can be bought or donated and it usually gets used in alchemy.
When he got a whiff of the blood, his theory was confirmed. His heart started beating faster, his brain became more excited and bloodthirsty, and he felt more energetic and violent.
"I knew it.. there's side effects from the potion that I drank." Chrysos closed the bottle. "I noticed that I've been more reckless the past few days for some reason."
Images and scenes flashed in his mind.
Aviflora Village, Battling the corrupted beast tamer, Goblin village and the fight with Rafouri.
He knew that if the past Chrysos were him, he would be more calculative and would rather escape or leave when he knows that he couldn't face something that would possibly endanger his life.
But because of the primal instincts of violence from the Crimson Elephant, Chrysos became more aggressive and he didn't think about the consequences of his actions until it became a dire situation.
"This is not good, I have to fix this somehow.." Chrysos looked at his arm and clenched his fist before releasing his grip slowly.
He looked for Meiros and called him over. "Meiros, get over here."
"Yeah? Alright I'll be there.." Meiros entered the kitchen. "What's up?" He looked at his teacher and wondered why he was called.
"Can you detect thoughts in someone's brain?" Chrysos asked.
"Hmm... no, I haven't tried that yet." Meiros shook his head.
"Can you try to detect mine?" Chrysos pointed to his head.
"Erm, sure?" Confused as he was, Meiros reached out his hand and placed his palm on Chrysos' head regardless.
Meiros breathed out and let his mind examine Chrysos' mind.
Zoom!
Meiros' thoughts entered Chrysos' mind as a spectator.
It was a dark void filled with lightning flashing everywhere. An eternal night filled with electricity and storms. These lightning bolts were Chrysos' brain activity. Or in other words, his thoughts.
"Hm?" Meiros frowned. He could feel that his master's thoughts were working fine, but there were some trails of thoughts that weren't from his master's. They were more like animal instincts without any intelligence.
Returning to the real world.
Meiros retracted his arm and opened his eyes. "Master, I felt thoughts that didn't belong to you.. I didn't peer into your thoughts because they were strong and if I forced it, I would've experienced a backlash."
Hearing this, Chrysos found out that his guess was correct. "Go ahead, tell me what you found out." Chrysos urged him.
"I found the thoughts of three boars, and an elephant in your mind. They were easy to read but they were foreign objects in my opinion." Meiros explained his analysis.
"Can you destroy them?" Chrysos asked.
Meiros shook his head. "I'm afraid that they are too connected to your mind.. if I destroy them, your mind will be damaged as well. And since they are connected to your mind, they also share some strength with you. So that means that I can't destroy them at my level even if I wanted to."
Chrysos held his chin. "So they're just thoughts.. or brain waves. But since they're dead, it's more of a neural network preserved by Divinious." Chrysos' thoughts rang in his mind. He wasn't sure if he was correct, it was just his hypothesis.
"Very well, continue studying." Chrysos sent Meiros on his way.
When Meiros left, Chrysos thought about it deeply.
This was serious. Chrysos couldn't drink any more of the evolutionary potions he made or else his mind will be replaced by primal instincts and he wouldn't be able to think normally. Of course he didn't want this.
Chrysos sighed. This was troublesome to deal with. He had to go to a professional psychic to cure his condition.
"Meiros, I'll be leaving for a bit, make sure to lock the door and don't let anyone in, got it?" Chrysos put on his dark green coat and reminded Meiros.
Meiros stuck out a thumbs up from the door. "Got it, I hope you come back safely."
…
Matile Street…
It was nighttime already. Chrysos went to Matile Street and saw a Psychic Treatment Center. Psychics could earn money by relaxing their customer's minds and curing traumatic memories and other mental disabilities.
Chrysos went inside and since it was nighttime, there were only a few people inside.
The receptionist sitting in the front desk saw Chrysos and welcomed him. "Ah sir, welcome to our center. Do you need anything?"
"I'm looking for a psychic that can cure mind invasion." Chrysos wiped the glass in his mask.
Not a stranger to these types of mental problems, the receptionist kindly responded. "Alright, I'll have Psychic Svaria to help you." The receptionist nodded and took out a book. "Psychic Svaria is in room 2. The center is usually less occupied at nighttime so she's available."
"Thank you." Chrysos walked towards the well lit corridor and found room 2.
He went inside the room and saw a woman sitting on her desk. She was wearing brown pants and a brown jacket with runes. Her neck had two necklaces with small mind crystals as gems.
Svaria, the stunning yet easily angered psychic, frowned. "Do you mind knocking?"
"Do you mind locking the door?" Chrysos replied as he sat down on the cotton sofa next to him.
"Answer me that way one more time and I'll have to refuse helping you." Svaria rolled her eyes at Chrysos.
"My bad." Chrysos opened both his hands with his palms facing her to gesture him backing off the conversation.
He looked around the room and it was surprisingly clean and tidy. The bookshelves were neatly placed, the lamps on the walls were nice to look at, the red cushioned chair in the middle of the room also looked fantastic.
"Alright, sit in this chair." Svaria gestured her hand towards a soft, padded reclined chair.
Chrysos sat and leaned his upper body backwards.
"You said that you have a mind invasion, right? Let's see if I can help you with that." Svaria held Chrysos' head and entered his mind just like what Meiros did.
Except that the way she peered inside was even deeper.
Zoom!
Finding herself into his void of a mind, she saw thoughts that clearly weren't his.
They were strangely colored lightning bolts that moved erratically as opposed to his normal thoughts that moved in a certain pattern.
"That's odd .." Svaria saw a dark space with yellow lightning flashing everywhere. These were Chrysos' thoughts. But there was crimson lightning and brown lightning amongst the yellow lightning.
She extended her hand forward and used her Divinious to interact with the foreign thoughts.
However, the crimson thoughts attacked her instead!
Svaria didn't panic, with a wave of her hand, she shielded herself and bound the crimson lightning in illusory chains. When the brown thoughts saw this, they tried running away, but Svaria bound them as well.
She then flicked her finger and tried destroying them, but she saw that they weren't being harmed at all.
"Huh? That's impossible.." Svaria attacked the thoughts again and again, but they weren't receiving any damage at all. "These are connected thoughts? This man is in so much trouble..." Svaria sighed, since she's unable to destroy the thoughts, the best she could do was seal them with psychic energy.
After securing the seal that bound the foreign thoughts, she exited Chrysos' mind.
When she returned to the real world, she looked at Chrysos strangely. "You have connected thoughts within your mind.. they cannot be destroyed because they share the same durability as your original thoughts."
"What? So I can't get rid of them?" Chrysos replied. He wasn't expecting for these thoughts to be so much trouble.
Svaria nodded. "But they can be sealed. My seal in your mind can be replenished by using Mind Element Divinious crystals. Preferably with a quality grade of Divinious-II. That's your best option for now."
"Alright.. thanks for your help. How much is it?" Chrysos reached for his wallet.
"No need, it wasn't that much effort. Just treat this as a free first time service." Svaria waved her hand at him.
"Alright then, thank you." Chrysos accepted the free deal. He was in dire need of money so a free deal is a free deal.
Chrysos left the center not too long after.
Left in the room, Svaria blew the hair that got in front of her face away. It was quite annoying, but she was more concerned about what she just saw. "That man... is he turning into a beast?"
She went to her bookshelves and began researching.
Svaria wanted to research this even further. And probably even use Chrysos as a guinea pig for experimentation in order to advance her control over psychic energy.