Chapter 105: Different Pathways, Different Styles

Chapter 105: Different Pathways, Different Styles

The instant Hvin Rambis saw such a scene, he broke free from that peaceful state and clearly realized that he had fallen into a trap—and that, even before this, he had already suffered a certain degree of influence.

Without hesitation, his waist and back bent slightly, and his body began to swell in an obvious manner.

His pupils then turned vertical, changing from pale blue to golden. His face, the backs of his hands, and every inch of exposed skin grew grayish-white scales like stone.

Amid tearing sounds, the white shirt, black vest, formal jacket, and straight trousers he wore all ripped apart, revealing the dragon scales beneath.

In an instant, Hvin Rambis had transformed into an abnormally huge monster. Aside from his head, which still retained a human shape, the rest of his body had completely mutated. He was like a grayish-white giant dragon whose evolution had not been completed and whose body had not yet fully grown.

This giant dragon had two gray, skin-covered wings on its back. Its four limbs were rather thick, and the grayish-white scales on their surface were engraved with one complex, three-dimensional mystical symbol after another. They extended inward into flesh and blood, and outward into the surrounding void, as though weaving together something that did not belong to the real world. Merely looking at them caused one’s mind to fall into disorder, thoughts to twist, and the spirit body to become stained with all kinds of notions that seemed to come from within one’s own heart—so much so that one would wish to tear oneself apart or destroy oneself.

This was the incomplete mythical creature form of the Spectator pathway!

For demigods of other pathways, if they had not reached the angelic level, then to fight in mythical creature form, they had to possess an extremely powerful will and exceptionally firm beliefs. Otherwise, they would be unable to control the tendency toward madness and loss of control and would most likely lose their reason directly, truly becoming monsters. But the Spectator pathway was different. They had Placate. They had treatments aimed at the mind and spirit. When facing madness and loss of control, they were not completely without methods. Therefore, as long as a battle did not last too long, they could use mythical creature form when they wanted to use it, and return to normal when they wanted to return to normal.

Whoosh!

All the thoughts within Hvin Rambis’s subconscious domain began to boil. They rolled and churned, distinguishing one thing from another, pushing out one implanted and modified portion of consciousness after another, and dissolving them into nothingness.

Whoosh!

A violent wind arose around the grayish-white dragon Hvin Rambis had become. It seemed to originate from reality, yet also from illusion.

Those winds carried certain wills as they blew in all directions. All living beings swept into them inevitably developed all kinds of abnormal states. Some trembled all over and stood frozen in place. Some blindly and irrationally fled toward the corners of the garden. Some lost control of their bodily functions and collapsed downward, their legs going weak. Others fainted outright and fell unconscious. Still others revealed fanatical expressions, becoming supporters of the giant dragon.

This was Dragon Might, which had undergone a qualitative transformation and originated from a mythical creature. From the original simple Intimidation, it had changed into Mind Deprivation with a variety of effects!

Using the opportunity while Dragon Might swept through the surroundings, Hvin Rambis’s will combined with his thoughts, transforming into one illusory, sinister version of himself after another. From within the collective subconscious sea, invisible to the overwhelming majority of Beyonders, they approached at high speed respectively toward Gehrman Sparrow on the rooftop and Audrey Hall at the edge of the garden.

As a Spectator, merely relying on the vague image and bearing whose face was unclear, he could judge that the attacker was Gehrman Sparrow!

At that moment, Audrey, following the result of their earlier discussion above the gray fog and the reminders from the two demigods, The World and The Hermit, was already murmuring to herself over and over, hypnotizing herself:

“I can see nothing. I can hear nothing…

“I can see nothing. I can hear nothing…”

She was doing this to avoid suffering mental abnormalities—or even directly losing control—because she had looked straight at Hvin Rambis’s mythical creature form.

However, this also made it impossible for her to “see” or sense that one of Hvin Rambis’s intents had already approached her Mind Body from the collective subconscious sea.

But suddenly, before Hvin Rambis’s “eyes,” the island of consciousness corresponding to the blond-haired, green-eyed girl disappeared. It was gone.

Audrey only felt warmth spread over her body, as though she had returned from a cold, dark cave to ground bathed in direct sunlight.

She hurriedly undid the hypnosis and opened her eyes. She saw the sun in midair pierce through clouds that were not especially thin, scattering radiant light downward. Amid that golden, clear feeling, flowers belonging to autumn bloomed quietly, beautiful and peaceful.

Audrey looked around in slight confusion. She did not see Hvin Rambis, nor did she see Gehrman Sparrow or that gigantic crimson moon.

This gave her the feeling that everything she had just experienced had been nothing more than a dream.

“What an incredible ability… A battle between two demigods might not even knock a single flower loose,” Audrey silently murmured to herself, calmly withdrawing from the garden and retreating into the corridor connecting it to the house.

She feared that her presence would make Gehrman Sparrow hesitate, affecting his battle.

Within the concealed world, one of the Hvin Rambises split off by the original had, at the same time, reached the island of consciousness belonging to Gehrman Sparrow beneath the crimson moon.

He was about to climb onto it, open the door to that Mind Body, manipulate the target’s subconscious, and make him commit all sorts of actions against his own intentions. Yet he discovered that this illusory island standing within the collective subconscious sea was deathly silent. No thoughts floated, no notions flashed. There was simply nothing he could influence.

A puppet! A marionette! Hvin Rambis instantly made his judgment. Combining it with information he had previously obtained, he gained a further grasp of Gehrman Sparrow’s condition.

He was not shocked, nor was he discouraged. Instead, he felt a few traces more joy and confidence, because to a demigod of the Spectator pathway, this allowed him to easily distinguish the difference between a marionette and the true body, greatly weakening Gehrman Sparrow’s strongest ability.

And do you think that, just by relying on marionettes, you can invalidate my mental invasion and consciousness manipulation? The sinister, illusory Hvin Rambis swept his golden vertical pupils across the island of consciousness corresponding to the marionette and found a transparent channel through which thoughts were transmitted. This was the symbolic appearance of Spirit Body Threads in the mind world, within the domain of consciousness!

Immediately afterward, this Hvin Rambis’s figure flashed, already following that transparent channel and finding another island of consciousness hidden far away. This was the root source that manipulated the marionette through thought. In other words, it belonged to the true body!

“I found you!”

Hvin Rambis gave a cold snort, making the surrounding collective subconscious sea raise a terrifying psychic storm. Wave after wave struck Gehrman Sparrow’s island of consciousness.

This caused the nearby “celestial phenomena” to change rapidly, and spirituality’s sense of the surroundings suffered severe interference. Taking the opportunity, Hvin Rambis approached Gehrman Sparrow’s island of consciousness, manifested grayish-white stairs, and attempted to quietly invade the target’s subconscious domain.

This was his habitual fighting style: one obvious and one hidden, one directly impacting and invading, the other secretly infiltrating in concealment. When used together, they very easily defeated the target’s mental barrier and preliminarily took control of the other party’s Mind Body.

At the same time, his dragon-formed self flew up and circled in midair, using Dragon Might and Breath to affect Gehrman Sparrow and support the battle in the mental domain.

Just then, the illusory Hvin Rambis who had quietly invaded Gehrman Sparrow’s Mind Body from the depths of the collective subconscious sea, along the bottom of the mental island, suddenly saw his vision blur. Before his eyes appeared boundless grayish-white fog. The surrounding collective subconscious sea and mental island had all vanished without a trace.

Hvin Rambis’s heart tightened. He hurriedly analyzed his own mind, suspecting that he had been affected by an illusion.

However, no matter how he dealt with it, that grayish-white fog did not change. Of course, no accident or danger erupted either. It seemed to be nothing more than a background.

This was rather puzzling.

Just as Hvin Rambis prepared to raise a psychic storm here as well, the grayish-white fog finally dissipated, revealing the earlier island of consciousness belonging to Gehrman Sparrow.

Hvin Rambis had no time to hesitate. He hurriedly invaded the corresponding subconscious domain, attempting to modify the target’s thoughts.

However, those thoughts were all suffused with clear, bright light. They were filled with a sacred and majestic aura, impossible to shake and unaffected.

This… Hvin Rambis instinctively raised his head and looked along the manifested stone stairs toward the part of the island of consciousness floating above the collective subconscious sea.

Reflected in his eyes was not only the “island” itself, but also a human figure with twelve pairs of flaming wings on its back, radiating waves of golden light.

It seemed to be the projection of an angel’s power!

Since Klein had planned today to deal with a demigod of the Spectator pathway, he had undoubtedly used Angel’s Embrace on himself beforehand—the kind that used the status of the Red Priest card to mobilize the power of the mysterious space above the gray fog. This was also the reason he had, for the time being, not been much affected while facing that incomplete mythical creature form.

The reason he had not directly revealed this point just now was that he was using Hvin Rambis for an experiment.

When Hvin Rambis tried to invade the island of consciousness corresponding to his true body, his marionette Qonas Kilgor had used an ability to Distort the enemy’s locked-on target: from Klein’s Mind Body to the projection of gray fog reality that enveloped Klein.

In this way, if Hvin Rambis could discover an island of consciousness within that patch of grayish-white fog, it would mean that some unknown living being lay dormant within the mysterious space above the gray fog. Klein would have to make preparations as early as possible. If not, then he could rest a little easier.

This was something he had long wanted to test. He had simply been hindered by the fact that enormous danger might exist and had not dared attempt it. Today, he finally had the opportunity to complete it. In any case, even if there was any backlash, the one to die would be Hvin Rambis, not him. It might even help him conveniently resolve a demigod.

Seeing that the other party had angelic protection, and that he could not break through or infiltrate the target’s Mind Body in a short period to exert conscious influence, Hvin Rambis retreated without the slightest hesitation. He withdrew from that area and returned to his own mind through the collective subconscious sea.

Then that enormous dragon vanished just like that, disappearing into thin air. Even when Klein used Spirit Body Threads, he could not find it.

Psychological Invisibility!

Hvin Rambis intended to use psychological blind spots to hide in the dark. On one hand, he would continue using area-of-effect Beyonder powers such as Mind Deprivation and Psychic Storm to gradually weaken the mental barrier strengthened by Gehrman Sparrow’s angelic enhancement. On the other hand, he would rely on his Sealed Artifact to attempt attacks.

As a demigod of the Spectator pathway, although a dragon’s melee combat was very strong, he still lacked necessary and powerful offensive Beyonder powers. He had to compensate through certain Sealed Artifacts.

At that moment, in front of Gehrman Sparrow—whether it was a marionette or the true body—an illusory book appeared. Around him, an ethereal voice sounded:

“I came, I saw, I recorded.”

What Klein intended to use was the Lightning Storm recorded by Creeping Hunger’s Record!

Against something like Psychological Invisibility, a direct, full-range, saturation-type area attack could solve the problem!

One had to admit that when dealing with Beyonders of a similar style, the Storm pathway was quite a good choice.