Chapter 237: Terrifying Puppet Spell
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
"General, there is nothing wrong with the magic arrays," a mage reported to Miorich as he glanced at Anfey. He wanted to see Anfey make a fool of himself.
"Check it again," Miorich demanded before he even turned around to look at him. The worst thing a leader could do was to change his ideas all the time and never hold firm in his position. When a leader listened to someone and believed in him, and then later started to offer different opinions on the same issue, the leader would doubt him. If the leader could not make his own judgement from the information given, he could be taken advantage of and misled by others. Miorich was an excellent general. He would not be indecisive. Since he believed in Anfey, he would not contradict him easily.
The mages looked at each other and then checked the magic array again, because they knew they could not disobey Miorich’s command.
Anfey and the suspect looked at each other for a while, but he did not find anything suspicious in that mage. The mage looked at him confused. He seemed to sneer at Anfey. Everything seemed normal about the mage. Someone else might doubt himself and think he had made a mistake, but not Anfey. Anfey was very determined and confident. He never second guessed himself.
Anfey slowly turned around and walked to the magic array. After the magic array started, it would slowly suck the magic crystals’ energy to keep the magic array running. It only took a little while to see some smog above the magic array. The smog was getting thicker.
When Anfey walked only five yards away from the magic array, he saw exactly what he expected. The smog seemed to be blown away by the wind and moving towards Anfey. Anfey knew the Heart of Nature was sucking the energy.
Anfey slowly closed his eyes, and got into Samadhi state. He suddenly started to see his surroundings clearer. Anfey focused all his attention on that suspected mage, looking for anything unusual.
Anfey scanned the suspect from head to toe and from toe to head, but he did not find anything unusual. Anfey turned to check the magic array. Suddenly, he saw an amazing new world. An invisible but clearly sensed energy was moving among all kinds of spells. The whole magic array was divided into sixteen sections. The energy stayed in each of the sections without interfering with each other. All the energy merged onto sixteen points. Anfey had never learned about magic arrays before, but he started to get the hang of how a magic array worked. Those sixteen points were the hinges for the door to the space. Anfey believed if he could continue to be able to see the magic array, he could build a magic array on his own.
"General, there is nothing wrong with the magic array," a mage turned around and told Miorich.
This time, Miorich did not respond. He only turned to look at Anfey. Anfey was totally lost in the thought. He did not hear anything around him.
It was people’s nature to want to have control in life. For instance, seeing the snowflakes falling, people could not help holding their hands out to catch them and watch them melt in their hands. Seeing beautiful flowers, some people would sniff, touch, or even pick them. People were just passerbys in the world, but wanted to prove their existence or leave their footprints. When they were touched or sentimental, most people would have the desire to do something.
To the people in that world, magic arrays were just magic arrays, but Anfey had a sense that magic arrays were integrated circuits. Watching the energy slowly moving in order, Anfey subconsciously used his ability mastered in the Evil Abyss. He used his mental power to communicate with that power.
The magic array suddenly shined with white light. The mages who were still checking the magic array were all startled by it. Anfey could clearly sense the energy oozing out of the spells. He immediately stopped using his mental power once he realized what he did to the magic array. He also woke up from his thoughts.
"What happened?" the mage who reported to Miorich before said, wide-eyed.The magic array itself had shown there was something wrong by running at a crazy speed.
Miorich turned to look at the suspected mage with a scolding look. "What else do you want to say?"
The mage smiled bitterly. "Master, I was not feeling well yesterday. I did not come and instead rested at my daughter’s house. You can check on it if you do not believe me. I did not start the magic array. I had nothing to do with it."
Anfey looked vicious. He looked at Suzanna first and then blinked at her. He turned to give Christian a look and then walked slowly to the mage who was arguing for himself.
He did not find anything unusual before, but as the mage talked more, Anfey could see what was wrong with him. The vision Anfey had with the Heart of Nature had not totally disappeared yet. Anfey still could clearly see the air coming out of his mouth. It seemed normal. When the air passed through the throat, the air constantly changed the position of the throat muscles and tongue. By changing the position of their mouths, people could make sounds. The problem with that mage was that he only breathed out. Normal people had to breath in intervals to get oxygen for the body. It was not possible to keep talking without breathing air in.
Anfey stood in front of that mage again. It was easy to figure out what was wrong him once he found something unusual on him. That mage’s chest was moving slightly up and down, but there was no air passing through his nose and mouth. The chest movement was only to prove he was normal. That mage could not completely stop breathing in unless he was a Samadhi practitioner as Anfey, or had reached the level that he could breathe through his skin.
"What is your name?" Anfey asked quietly.
"My name is Thore, Master." The mage looked respectfully at Anfey.
Anfey nodded. He noticed another unusual thing about the mage. The mage in front of Anfey neither breathed in nor had any pulse. Judging from every angle, the mage in front of Anfey must be dead. Anfey felt it was amazing and could not make sense of it.
Anfey moved his body sideways. A bright white sword radiant passed over Anfey’s shoulder. With a metallic whooshing sound, Suzanna’s sword thrust into the mage’s throat.
The mages around the magic array were startled. They had noticed Suzanna slowly walking up to Anfey, but they did not expect her to kill the mage. They were worried and angry when they saw their fellow getting killed for no reason.
Christian had stood in between. He did not mean to fight with mages. Neither could he. He had to stop the altercation before Miorich could say something.
Suzanna pulled her sword out with a backhand move. The mage held his throat with one hand and stumbled back with shock and anger. The way he looked definitely got compassion from the others.
"Stop it." Anfey pointed at him and raised his voice on purpose. "Your blood should have oozed out when you were stabbed in the throat. You neither breathed in, nor had any heart beat. In other words, you have been dead."
The mage slowly fell to the ground with one hand on his throat. He looked like he was in a spasm and kept twitching his legs as he opened his eyes wide. He looked like he could not die in peace.
Two mages with hot tempers had already started to chant. Element surges started to get tense. However, all these activities stopped after Miorich cleared his throat. The world seemed to become quiet.
"Anfey, what happened?" Miorich walked over.
"He has been dead." Anfey shrugged. Things were more than he could imagine. He thought the mage would resist after he was found out. Who would know he played his original role, dead on the floor. It was not easy for Anfey to convince others to believe him.
"Dead?" Miorich said.
"Yes, I have said before that he neither breathed nor had any heart beat. What was he if he was not dead," Anfey said, walking forward.
"Anfey, stop." Hui Wei rushed out behind Blavi.
"What is wrong?" Anfey asked.
"He must have been created by a necromancer with puppet spells if he did not breathe or have a heart beat for a long time." Hui Wei had rushed next to Anfey and grabbed him to stop him from getting any closer to that mage’s body. "It is too dangerous. We need to get away from him."
"Bullsh*t!" A mage was so enraged that his eyes turned blood red. "Thore chatted with us this morning. How could he be a puppet?"
"Right! If he were a puppet and we did not sense it, wouldn’t General Miorich sense it?" another mage said. He was smarter, knowing to use Miorich’s reaction to prove his point.
"What if he was a Servant of Death created by masters with puppet spells?" Hui Wei refuted.
All the mages were startled by what Hui Wei said. Low-level puppet spells could only change the target’s body. Advanced-level spells could be divided into two extremes. One was to make the body of the target become more powerful. The target could even have some counter ability for magic and combat power. The other was to avoid making any change to the body of the target and only intervene with telepathy and mental power. A perfect Servant of Death would look no different than a regular person, have the basic magic and combat power skills, or even get married and have kids. It would be hard to notice anything wrong with Servants of Death among people.
Miorich suddenly looked seriously concerned after hearing about Servants of Death. Servant of Death was the tamest puppet spell among other spells of necromancers, but could also be the most terrifying one. A long time ago, there were two necromancers who had successfully turned half of the city into Servants of Death in a year. A Servant of Death could slowly turn his family into Servants of Death in an unnoticable way. It was impossible to keep track of who got affected by this spell. Later, people found out by an incident. Back then, the Church of Light was powerful and influential. Two travelling priests performed Magic of Light to try to convert people, but the people on the street attacked them like crazy. One of them was torn into pieces while the other one luckily got away. This incident got the attention of the Pan Continent, and Church of Light became famous afterwards.