novelraw Chapter 487 - 486 - Broken Souls
Chapter 487 - 486 - Broken Souls
Lind was very happy with the battle. The Nautilus had performed far above his expectations but there were still issues. Qi consumption for one.
Flying and evading he could do all day without end as well as basic Qi manipulation, but using the Qi sails or more complex attacks was a massive drain on the ship.
So long as he was at a good density, the Nautilus recovered decently, but if too low, it would not be able to keep flying and attacking or anything at the same time. At least it did not suffer the issues of cultivators since it could fly up and down as much as he wanted.
He also was glad his make-shift neutralizer worked. His harmony transformed Fiend Qi into natural Qi but he knew that would kill a Fiend if exposed for too long.
He had to tweak it quite a bit before he found something that negated but did not destroy Fiend Qi. It basically suppressed it in living beings but would completely empty out any artifacts or weapons if exposed.
It also had a stunning effect of being able to drag an object once infused with Fiend Qi. The large-scale test on the Raptor was a success.
With the 3 wyverns attacking, he was able to sneak up and get in range for his own capture attempt. The net had been a near thing though.
Lind had magnetized the Nautilus after he quickly Saw what the net was made of. The electrical charge actually made it easier to draw it away.
Once they safely had the Raptor under control, they brought it back to the mountain. It was there that the real obstacle lay.
The very instant Lind brought the Raptor over the stone, Heavenly Wrath gathered. It was a problem that even the mountain spirit could not help with.
Lind actually had to reason with Heaven, or he spoke and hoped it would listen. It did not really go as planned. Heaven might favor his bloodline but it clearly did not care about his goals.
Lind was forced to make a sort of compromise with the Raptor as a base; he adapted some of his remaining materials to make a floating prison. He was stunned to learn the Raptor was grade 6 material!
He could not even infuse it properly when he tried!
He suddenly understood why grade 6 was so hard for him if could not even grasp the materials!
Elixirs had been at the peak of grade 5 as well but the bottleneck did not feel nearly as difficult, yet it was there.
Once the Raptor no longer needed the Nautilus to keep it floating, Lind modified the beam to simply a lower intensity so there would be no surprises and put less staring on his ship. The hull of the Raptor seemed seamless but he found an array at the back of the bird shape.
He had to weave a new one to trigger the door but it worked after some experimenting. Celestial Qi was affected by the beam as well but Lind noticed it was far less inhibited.
He then was angered by what he saw. The chained up people were sitting in their own filth but did not respond to it at all. They were clearly almost naked as well but it was as if they were just lumps of clay!
He left the Fiends where they lay and might have broken a hand or two by 'accident' as he swiftly freed and transferred the people to the mountain.
There was no response when he did that so he was glad none were spies, or at least he could hope until he tested them.
The pillar was still with him so he used it and found all the humans, demons, and aether children were clean so far as being possessed went. Sadly, nothing he did seemed to affect them.
Kiran and Mika took over their care but he warned them sternly to take breaks as caring for the nearly 25 people would be a long term job.
Lind returned to the floating prison and began to clean up the mess before finally locking up each and every Fiend. None of them were dead but a few were withering already.
It was stunning how quickly that happened so the beam must accelerate the process.
Once that was done, he then added a few measures of his own.
He put 3 of the pillars up and connected them to some converts. They looked like open bullhorns but instead of a handgrip, they ended in 6 flutes coming out of the back.
It allowed the Fiend Qi to be converted back to natural Qi and dispersed into the air.
Once all of that was set up, he shut down the violet beam.
It did not take long for a few of the Fiends to rouse but they were still groggy. Lind was making notes but he frowned as the ones that had started to wither recovered slowly. He did not sense any Fiend Qi in the artifact so how were they recovering?
His Eyes were able to easily see the flow of Qi before he finally understood the horrifying truth about Fiends. The souls were still alive! They were not refined right away but over time!
The horror of it sickened him but he saw no way to extract the souls as most were degraded beyond any hope of salvation. Worse, the dantians of the Fiends seemed to integrate the souls like Qi from a pill, elixir, or other external source.
It gave him a nasty flashback to when Ethry tried to save him by sacrificing herself. There was a massive difference, however.
Her life was both willingly given and also she was only trying to use her vitality to save him whereas the Fiends slowly refined a living soul into their Qi and increased vitality. He also saw the soul mitigate some kind of damage their bodies took.
He would have found it fascinating if it was not so horrifying.
"Wha…" One of the male Fiends tried to speak but they all seemed like they were drunk. He was curious as to why but nothing he could See showed any cause for it.
It took a bit longer before one of them finally looked up with some clarity. It was a woman with better armor than the others. He took that to mean she was in charge.
"You are Lind Frey." It was not a question.
"I know I caused a ruckus at one of the villages but is burning resources like you are, worth just looking for me?" Lind started with a fairly straight forward question. The ethereally beautiful woman just stared at him in silence.
It was going to be a long attempt to learn what he wanted.
Still, he had a trump card to use.
"Do you know who I actually am?" Lind tried a new tack but the Fiend simply sat there calmly. Others awoke but they simply looked at her and said nothing. The level of discipline was surprising.
"Well, since all of you are here, let me show you what I can do." Lind summoned a dispersal artifact. He proceeded to weave with Celestial Qi which finally got a reaction from most of them, but only that.
No words or accusations flew.
He tried to demonstrate a few other things but they did not react to his ability to make elixirs or Forge. He then stepped back and looked at each of them in their disturbing eyes.
"Ok, you don't know who I am. How about this, how long can you live once the souls in each of your dantians are used up?" The woman finally looked surprised. She looked at the others chained up with her but she knew she was the first to wake up recently.
Still, could one of their own have betrayed them while she was unconscious?
Silence was all that greeted Lind still but for a change it seemed like they wanted to talk. He then decided to refer to his last attempt.
"I am going to say this once. What I am about to do cannot be undone. If you do not answer me, I have no compulsion to hold back. You have already done enough for me to not have pity at this point." Lind saw the sneer on their faces as he knew he was arguing more to himself than them, but he still had to say the words.
It was different in battle.
Fighting for your life was perfectly acceptable but inflicting pain was very different. He was also unsure what would happen exactly but he could guess.
Emerald flames covered his right arm and finally some of them looked fearful at him. His eyes narrowed at them as it did not include their leader but the scarred man next to her.
"Who are you?" Lind knelt in front of the man and noticed that the woman also looked angrily at him.
"His name is Huang. He was assigned to my group a year ago." The man's one eye glared at her but said nothing. Lind nodded as he understood something about her at least. She did not like secrets.
"You know what will happen if I burn you? Are you still not going to tell me what this hunt is all about?" Silence was the only answer but Lind did not care at that point.
He touched the chest of the man and all were stunned when the Qi went haywire.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" He screamed which shocked the rest but Lind watched as his Eyes saw the Fiend Qi change back to natural Qi. That was not all. The partial soul in his dantian was suddenly freed and dispersed back into the cycle of samsara.
It was instantaneous. The Fiend in front of him lost his resource instantly while his meridians were cracked just by Lind's harmony being infused into him.
Without the soul, his limbs shriveled and his hair turned pure white.
The remaining 19 Fiends were shocked and terrified. What had just happened?!
Lind stepped back as the man started to break down. Even he had not expected it but he kept his face cold as he watched the Fiends go through several reactions. Some were hunkering down but more than a few were trying to test the chains holding them.
"So let me start again. I am Lind Frey. I am your enemy who wants simple answers. The first to talk might not have to experience what just happened to them." The faces looked at him before one of the other men suddenly tried to stand up and fell back down due to the chains.
"The Overseer! She wants to find you badly! She wants to kill you for what you did to her family!" Lind narrowed his eyes before he began to transform and they all felt the pressure coming off of him.
Sigils floated in midair over them all.
"Tell me more, now." Lind's cold reptilian eyes bored into the man and them all. The crack in their pride was there and he would use it fully. The interrogation began.