Chapter 82: Chapter 82: A Good Lesson

Aalam

Aalam had never seen Mila truly work before. Sure, when he was in the Id state she’d guided him through killing a fake family so he could gain access to the father’s alchemy lab. And, sure, he’d seen her work with kids back on Earth. But he’d never seen her perform the type of work she’d trained her life for.

Now, however, she’d been sharing everything she was experiencing over their bond, from her senses to her emotions, and it was eye opening.

After sneaking into the army disguised as a Quill Clan soldier, she hadn’t taken any actions for several hours, just watching the soldiers and commanders. Then she’d targeted one person very deliberately, got him alone, and used her Evil Eyes - Lust and Devil’s Contract combo to enslave him.

Before letting him go on his merry way, however, she’d asked twenty-three questions. Some were indirectly confirming the location of the Left Hand of the Runescribe, not saying outright it was her goal. Some were about the patrol schedules of the army’s scouts. And some were about the man’s impressions of other commanders.

To Aalam, the information had all seemed a bit random, but, when he’d asked, Mila had explained she was using the man to fill in gaps in the information she’d already had. Then she’d proceeded to enslave men up to the number Aalam’s Soul stat would allow.

During the process, she’d noticed something when charming five men and killed them instead, and Mila’s explanation was that they wouldn’t follow all the orders she wanted.

When she was done, she’d sent several relatively powerful assassins after the army’s patrols, assigned two sound mages to block all noise from reaching Prince Tomin’s ridiculously nice tent, and then ordered everyone else, including all the slaves who’d stayed hidden in the army for fifteen days, to start massacring the army.

Not one of the men sacrificed themselves to save others and that was Mila’s true ability. Just one person putting the lives of others above their own, or just realizing they wouldn’t live anyway and risking everything to hurt her, could have derailed everything, but it didn’t happen.

Mila was able to read people to an almost scary degree and she’d found and specifically targeted the powerful cowards, killing those with more valor before the fighting even started, and during the fighting she’d assassinated several dozen commanders who could have helped bring the soldiers of the Amoranth Kingdom together.

The much more impressive bit, however, to Aalam at least, came when she started talking to Prince Tomin.

Mila had four goals when going after Tomin and his army. One, weaken the forces of the Amoranth Kingdom as much as possible, preferably killing everyone but Prince Tomin himself and Ava Gale. Two, get the Left Hand of the Runescribe back. Three, figure out the Amoranth Kingdom’s plans for Isaiah Gale. And finally four, keep Prince Tomin alive and in a position where he could practice his Danger Sense skill.

The Legendary grade Danger Sense was one of the skills Aalam needed and Prince Tomin had it. But the possibility of stealing the skill if he fully mastered it before they killed him in the future was not worth sacrificing a Legendary grade skill and artifact from killing him and his one remaining general immediately.

The problem was Prince Tomin, at least for the moment, was a very dangerous opponent they probably wouldn’t be able to kill. His build was created around the Danger Sense skill, so, if they had the intention to kill him, he could escape and, if they got close to him, given his speed and attack power, they would almost certainly die.

Yet, even with the restraints of deliberately not trying to kill the most dangerous person on the battlefield, Mila had ended up with everything she wanted. She’d retrieved the Left Hand of the Runescribe. She’d destroyed the entire force of the Amoranth Kingdom other than the two she wanted to live. And she’d forced Prince Tomin to run away in a state where he would be unable to level up for at least a third of a year.

She could even find Prince Tomin and Ava Gale at any time.

Before taking on the Amoranth Kingdom’s forces, she’d ended quite a few invasions, from which she’d gained stats, artifacts, and skills. Two of those skills had been Hunter’s Mark (F-Epic) and Mark Tracking (F-Epic). Together with another Epic grade skill and a Rare grade skill they could be merged into Hunter’s Senses (F-Legendary), but just the two themselves were already incredibly useful.

Having secretly placed Hunter’s Mark on both Tomin and Ava, she’d be able to track them anywhere on Hira for at least a year, and neither of the two had the right skills or Laws to even figure out they were marked, let alone remove them.

Most impressive to Aalam, however, she’d done all this while deliberately hiding most of her power. It was especially telling that, as far as he was aware, Mila had yet to use the special ability of Devil’s Contract once since she’d arrived on Hira, using it as if it were a normal contract skill.

There was a good lesson for him in that. Unless necessary, there was no reason to expose your full abilities. It would be a good habit to get into himself as well.

“So, do you hate me more than before? Are you disgusted?” Mila walked up to where he was sitting on the top of a hill about a hundred kilometers away from where the Amoranth Kingdom’s force had set up camp, her face looking nervous. “Did I scare you?”

Aalam looked at the 162 slaves who had followed her, then back at her now supernaturally pink eyes. “What are you talking about? Why would I be scared of you?”

Mila looked a little confused. “You just saw me destroy an army. I would expect some reaction, some shock.”

“But you told me what you were going to do in advance.” Aalam tried to figure out where she was coming from. Sure, the blood, guts, and screams had been worse in reality than in fiction, and he’d never been in war before, so it was a bit distressing. But he’d been fighting plagues and natural disasters for a few years before his death. He’d seen thousands of people dying and, in most ways, their deaths were worse.

It was getting over the moral implications of killing with his own hands or Mila killing with hers which had been troublesome, but he’d passed through quite a few native villages and towns over the last several days. He’d seen the recently made mass graves and he knew that was the result of wars.

The invasion forces had killed cultivators because it made their goals easier and Mila had killed them because their deaths did the same for her. It wasn’t right, but it was how wars worked, and they were at war. There were lines which shouldn’t be crossed, but Aalam wasn’t about to stand on a high horse.

The very fact killing other cultivators brought more primal energy than killing monsters meant the real universe would likely be far more violent than Earth, and Mila was right about the level of comfort he’d enjoyed as a citizen of the United States. He wasn’t going to get that back any time soon, and he was ready to live with that.

“Still.”

“You aren’t a warrior, Mila, so your fighting style is more insidious, but it’s not much different than the Bride killing the Crazy 88. And people root for the Bride in that scenario.”

Mila gave him a look he found hard to place. “I thought you didn’t like Kill Bill.”

“I don’t.” Aalam shook his head. “There isn’t enough plot.”

“Alright.” Mila nodded twice, seemingly thinking to herself. “I’m not sure how I feel about you being so comfortable, though. It feels like I’ve taken away your innocence or something.”

“No.” Aalam stood up. “That was Houston.”

“Oh.” Mila nodded, looking more comfortable this time.

Around three years before their deaths, they’d been planning on going on vacation to Europe when an extremely powerful hurricane had nearly destroyed Houston, a last minute change in its path leading to far more lives lost than expected. Instead, they’d gone there and Mila had worked to help with the psychological damage inflicted by the storm while Aalam helped repair the electrical grid and worked on maintenance for a fleet of rescue robots.

They’d both seen quite a lot of horrific things on that trip and viewing the devastation caused by climate change up close had helped push Aalam to switch the focus of his research.

“Could you have them move over there.” Aalam’s face became stern, uncomfortable with what he was about to do, as he pointed to a spot at the bottom of the hill and Mila gave him a look he again couldn’t figure out.

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Then she ordered the men she’d enslaved to move and Aalam placed his right foot on a disturbed section of the hill, pushing all his remaining magic, qi, and psyforce into a rune he’d drawn into the ground.

That rune transferred energy into a series of runes which flowed all around the hill and then into a set of twelve runes surrounding the slaves. Gravity lessened around a kilometer in every direction, but increased where the slaves were standing, by about a factor of twelve. At the same time, heat rose in the same area gravity had decreased, and the temperature around the slaves rapidly lowered, freezing them all almost solid.

Blades of wind then smashed into all of them, flowing throughout the small area they were trapped in, and they died, the Four Elements Formation variant he’d deployed completing its job.

 

Congratulations!

Your Law Egg of Gravity has advanced to peak grade.

 

Your soul is affected by your understanding of Law.

Magic +24, Spirit +12, Soul +12

 

Congratulations!

Your Law Egg of Gust has advanced to peak grade.

 

Your soul is affected by your understanding of Law.

Agility +16, Magic +16, Spirit +8, Soul +8

 

You have leveled up from level 1 to level 5

Strength +56

Agility +56

Endurance +64

Toughness +56

Vitality +64

Perception +80

Magic +76

Spirit +120

Soul +272

Aura +32

Attunement +24

Luck +0

 

Your Hunter of Sentients Boon has increased to Hunter of Sentients XV

 

Hunter of Sentients XV: Increase the effectiveness of all base stats by 7.5%

 

Aalam felt a bit sick, but it was necessary. “Killing is a bit bad, but slavery is worse. Have fun in hell you worthless cowards.”

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