233 Relationship of gods and mind break
Leon kept standing over the corpse of that elf and kept looking at the burn marks on the ground and he could still feel the heat of it.
'What kind of fire was that?' He asked his God, Apollo - as he felt the heat from that flame was even more than anything he controlled now.
[Hellfire. He doesn't control the flames, it's just a spell.]
Hearing that Leon breathed a sigh of relief, but still the fact that Rio had a spell like that still unhinged him.
'Can you teach me that?' Leon asked.
[... You should focus on learning the spells I've taught you already. Be patient.]
Hearing that Leon could only sigh silently.
When he was fighting inside his cabin and heard the sounds of battle outside earlier, and now when he saw the marks of chaos left on the ground, he couldn't help but feel like he was still behind Rio. Far behind him, and if he doesn't improve fast enough, then he's gonna lose his top rank when the real exams start. He didn't care about rank, but it was a condition given by a test given by another God, and if he completed it, then he can get a high level skill of his own choice as a blessing.
"No, I can't lose that chance." Leon muttered under his breath and thought - 'It seems I need to practice faster. I should learn the technique I got from the library under Miss Freya first. Then maybe ask God Apollo to teach me something about the art of archery.'
Leon was thinking while looking at Rio's back. But then he remembered something. Zirix, who fought with him on the first day was almost equal to him in strength, and yet Rio pushed him away easily without even trying. He then remembered about the spell or skill Rio used to do that and thought - 'I also need to increase the mastery of my current blessings of strings. This guy has something similar to that blessing too.'
While Leon was busy with his monologue of growth and dreams of surpassing everyone, Saisha was just staring at the ground. Her mind, a mess. Not because someone threatened her like that for the first time, but because she didn't mean it. She didn't want to attack him or hurt him, she just waved her hand normally to stop him. With his strength he should've been fine.
'And yet I hurt him again.' She thought looking at the blood dropped below that was from his hands - as the time of the library when the staff held him down also came to her mind.
Her mind not even looking at the body of that dead elf, or about the spell Rio casted earlier on his dead body, or why he was so angry to threaten her like that for that simple scratch - she was just lost.
Rio walked forward as Amelia, Esme and Ayla followed closely behind him. He had only taken two steps ahead that he remembered something and stopped.
He still didn't get the quest clear notification from the system yet.
Just to check, if he ignored it by mistake, he opened up the system and looked for it too, but found nothing there.
'Is this system slow? But that shouldn't be.'
'In that case, did I miss someone.'
Rio thought, and looked up. Seeing the barrier getting nearly destroyed, he knew he didn't have much time. Maybe once the barrier cracked open, whoever it was he missed, might just slip away.
He can't just fail his first quest, otherwise how would he get the investment of that dagger back. Or how many times he'd have to mute the system to stop it from laughing at him.
Thinking up to that point Rio closed his eyes and started focusing on every little detail since the beginning of the fight, no, even before that, since the moment he entered Dorsia - the scenes of everything started playing in his head again.
From the moment he saw the girls sitting there, to Leon arguing with the guard, to Saisha coming out, and to them getting poisoned - everything came to his mind without missing a single detail.
Until he finally found the anomaly of this scenario. 'Found you my fat rat. Now let's see which hole you're hiding at?'
Rio thought and flared his mana, his mana sense sweeping the entire building, every room, every corner, the entire restaurant, going as far as his mana touched the barrier and was blocked.
He opened his eyes and came in front of a pillar.
"Come out now." He said to him, as in his eyes came the shadow of the fat manager hiding behind the pillar.
Ever since the beginning this guy was here. He was near the door, waiting there for him to enter. He was the first to welcome him and he was also there when the food was served. This guy was also the one who came by himself when Leon was arguing at the gate to stop him from entering.
At first Rio thought it was because of Leon's halo that pulled hate and attention from everyone who saw him, but maybe it wasn't Leon, but Apollo, who influenced that routine. After all, how can the Aztec sun god let someone else kill his lover's chosen.
Huitzilopochtli and Apollo, two deities titled the God of suns in their own myths and legends. When the Emergence happened, these two also fought against each other like other gods who had similar titles. After all, no gods wanted to share their records and titles with anyone else. It wasn't just about ego or pride, it was also about getting followers and belief more easily.
If there are a dozen God of suns out there, then if anyone prayed to just the sun or believed in the sun, then his power of faith would be shared among all those gods associated with the sun. But if the world acknowledges any one God, as the supreme God of sun, then that one God can just hoard all that power of faith and grow stronger beyond limits.
That's why the gods of similar titles all fought with each other, vying for that supremacy - until the World Will interfered and stopped everyone. Now all those power hungry gods could just find each other's avatars and kill them. Hoping to let the opponent weaken beyond limits and be forgotten by the world and consumed by the world system. Thus removing their competition and leaving more followers for them.
But as they say, there are always exceptions to everything. Not all gods fought each other - some joined hands, some submitted to others to stop making enemies, and some simply didn't care.
But Apollo being Apollo, with the luck of himself and halo of plot - went even one step further. After defeating his opponent, instead of killing him like others were doing, he let Huitzilopochtli go free.
Huitzilopochtli somehow became gay yandere after that.
Don't ask how or why?
Maybe it was the tone of Apollo and his ambiguous words, or maybe it was the reputation of Greek gods, who're just born lusty- but it happened.
Anyway, Huitzilopochtli, an old god with feathers covering his naked body, being lovey dovey for him, disgusted Apollo. So he beat the crap out of him again, this time for real. And when the aztec God still didn't understand his intentions, Apollo killed 3 of his main supporters continuously, to make his stance clear.
As anyone with half a brain can guess, doing all that while not killing the God directly, only made Huitzilopochtli more angry and obsessed over Apollo. He vowed for his revenge and to kill Apollo.
But Rio knew the future, and knew that this guy's still gonna be a licking dog for Apollo in the future again.
"I know you're there so just come out." Rio said as he noticed the fat man still hiding behind the piller, using an invisibility spell or artifact and not coming out. He mainly doubted David, cause even now he could only find this one guy who was alive and conscious from all the staff of Dorsia.
Not in the mood to play, Rio just brought out his crimson dagger and started stabbing him directly. Everyone who thought he was just talking to air, was surprised as they saw red blood started gushing out from seemingly nowhere.
-urkgh kurgg-
Soon enough, the figure of David came in everyone's view.
Rio moved forward placing his knife on David's neck, and said - "Pro tip, next time you use an invisibility spell, skip the heavy cologne. Or better yet, just take a shower."
Rio slashed his neck and moved back. The flood flowed out like a fountains and soon David fell down, dead.
-shatter-
Looking up and seeing the barrier broken, and seeing many high rankers floating above, Rio ignored the idea of doing a mind search on this guy, to learn about Virgil and directly used the same spell he used on the dark elf before.
Mind Break, a spell used for exactly what its name implies. Breaking someone's mind - be it by flooding too much information than one can handle, or by extracting everything forcefully, turning one into a cripple. Since he didn't have time to search all his memories, he just broke his mind completely so no one else could do it too.
After all, if he can't have it, then why should he give an advantage to some law agency of world association.
"Let's go back to academy, now shall we?" Rio said to Amelia, after putting away his dagger. And swapping the system panel, congratulating him for finishing the quest.
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