"What just happened here"
"Bewitching Magic Spider, psychic creature, able to use it's shriek to produce psychic magic to manipulate it's target to a level"
said Cao Guang sitting on the ground.
He may have broken through in his Mental Strength but it came at a price. Cao Guang tore of the shrapnel he embedded in his abdomen.
The creature was able to use psychic magic to make it's prey to make decisions and actions they would not make rationally or emotionally.
Of course it was all to an extent. It could not make the teachers commit suicide. Instead it used their fear and selfishness and magnified it to make them escape alone in to the midst of Tyrant Earth Lizards.
The teachers were strong enough to kill it, so they had to die. Especially when it didn't have any substantial offensive prowess. A united front from students were enough to barely threaten it.
So it played the students. Dividing them into groups and controlled them into doing what they normally wouldn't. The irony was almost poetic. It made sure the area looked devoid of signs of the living, so that army or other beasts would leave it alone to eat as many humans as it wanted.
It's control over the psyche of its prey wasn't perfect either. Stronger Mental Strength meant weaker the effects. Gao Xuan was knocked out due to it's shriek.
Luo Heng failed to connect stars, while Song Xia and Cao Guang could complete their spells. But Cao Guang's judgement was indeed impaired. When fighting a Advancing Warrior his first move would to summon both Little Flame Belle and Fenrir and to cast spells from a distance, especially when he wasn't sure if Gao Xuan could even cast a spell.
Neither did he try any strategies to improve victory or call for backup. If he failed to kill there, then that was it. It was unlike him.
"If this Spider was manipulating us how did you avoid being controlled by it's desperate attack at the end and find out about it" Gao Xuan retorted curiously.
Cao Guang held up a bloodied shrapnel towards him from his abdomen.
"Pain trumps everything".
A broken piece of metal was flying towards him, he simply stayed where he was while being paralysed initially. Pain knocked him out of his fugue state and allowed him to force a break through.
"How could you be sure you would attack the Spider and not us when confronted with it and why wouldn't we attack you?"
"Oh please, you guys adore me too much to do anything like that"
The trio almost regurgitated their military lunch upon hearing the answer.
"Fear. All creatures feel paralysed by fear when faced with something far stronger than us. The Bewitching Magic Spider wasn't that stronger than us but it's psychic spells could indeed trick us into it being that strong, especially individually.
I hoped that we would either be paralysed by fear or moved by fear of death. Ironically if we were too strong then we would perhaps have also attacked each other because we wouldn't be paralysed by fear"
"So in essence, you got lucky. You weren't sure of anything or atleast anything you just said were you? " Song Xia snorted.
"Are you making stuff up so you can pretend that you knew what you were doing?" Luo Heng questioned.
"Haha"
Cao Guang merely scratched his face in reply as he didn't have an answer for anything he did. It scared him to think, that he did something with such assurance and now he didn't know why he did it.
"It does show us a weakness though. Our Mental Strength and resistance to Psychic spells are nonexistent when facing something even slightly stronger than this thing. We might even commit suicide" atleast Gao Xuan was scared.
"Is any one of you going to help me with First aid?" Cao Guang asked unapologetically.
"No" the trio cried in unison.
"Hey either the Spider killed us with us even realising it or we died fighting it, either I made the right bet"
"How about you play Russian roulette alone next time" Luo Heng spoke.
"Fine I was deeply and completely wrong and will never repeat it, Alright?".
Cao Guang didn't have a good explanation for his choice of advancing towards the roof but he was sure that his Little Tora pendant had slightly shaked when he was in doubt as if calming him down. But it only lasted for a second before it died down due to a lack of energy.