Chapter 1674 1674. Mental Block
On the sky, Jack and the others tussled with the eldritch beholder. The ones who could do any meaningful damage were Arlcard, Therras, and Spark.
Broidrireg's spells were useless. He had to resort to becoming a tank for his four allies. A role that he was neither good at nor fond of. He kept his body close to the eldritch beholder and used his claws and fangs to keep the eldritch beholder's attention on him. He kept on getting hit by eldritch beholder's spells in return, but he endured.
Jack was the same. He regretted using the Lightning God Incarnation. All his lightning attacks were as if sinking to a bottomless well before they touched the eldritch beholder. He had been told about the eldritch beholder's anti-magic ability, but he thought the divine skill could somehow trump that ability as Hope's Light did.
Fighting with a handicap such as this, he thought it was better if he didn't use Lightning God Incarnation. Arlcard refrained from using his dark lord incarnation after seeing how ineffective Jack's lightning form was.
While Jack was feeling miserable, he was hit by a heavy mental attack. Not as powerful as the time when Evil Janus used the Illios Stare on him, but it's close. This time, the result was different. He had now trained to use mana manipulation to protect his mind.
The last time he fought Evil Janus, his mana manipulation might have been powerful and better than most, but his application was mostly on his martial arts and game skills. Compared to other martial artists who had trained for most of their lives, he only focused on training recently.
With masters like Wong and Murong, martial artists like Long and Four Winds were trained with a regular meditation technique that honed their minds. Hence, Four Winds was able to protect his mind even when he had just become proficient at mana manipulation not long ago. Domon also taught this technique to his disciples but Jack was always too busy so he only taught the more practical arts and never had the chance to teach this mind technique to Jack.
During the journey from Hydrurond to Aurebor, Jack learned about this technique from Grace when they chatted about Jack's battle with Long in Hydrurond. Jack was intrigued by how Long wasn't affected by the Illios Stare as severely as he was.
Grace asked Jack to hit her using the Illios Stare. Rather ungentlemanly, Jack complied. He was surprised to find Grace could still do things even with the Illios Stare on her. Grace informed Jack that Murong had taught her the mind technique during her tutelage in the space-time chamber.
Jack went and asked Domon, who was also inside the mobile fortress, about this technique. Domon happily gave him pointers about how to train. While Jack taught Hatori mana concealment, he spent his time training how to use mana manipulation to block mental attacks.
With his mana affinity, it took him only a short time to master the technique. Hence, he wasn't affected by the eldritch beholder's mind blast.
Arlcard was slightly affected. But like how he could do mana concealment naturally, this mind block also came to him without him ever doing any real training. Jack wondered whether these abilities came from Cain.
Therras was affected more heavily. However, it could still force itself to continue fighting. Therras was more like a feral beast than a thought-based combatant. It relied more on its instinct when fighting.
Broidrireg was unfazed. Tiemezzys was able to resist the Illios Stare when Jack used it on him. Being an older dragon, Broidrireg's mind was much stronger and his mastery of using mana manipulation to protect his mind was also already top-notch.
Yet, out of all of them, Spark was the most unaffected. This was because Spark didn't have a mind as natural creatures did. Its thoughts were more like the outcome of computerized circuits. The mental blast was unable to cause Spark any disruption. He continued to slash the eldritch beholder while his wing blades repelled the tentacles that came at him.
Jack might have been able to block mental attacks, but it still didn't solve his predicament. His Lightning God Incarnation didn't last long. He felt bad about wasting such a powerful skill. He had a brief thought of heading back down to use his lightning on the enemy army below, but then he thought of Emris.
He had heard about the lord marshall's demise when he checked on Isabelle. He also heard how he died. Without wasting more time thinking, he turned into a lightning bolt and got into a position. He then cast Wind Jet and shot forward. Before hitting the eldritch beholder's anti-magi planar wall, he cast ghost form.
His ghost form had lightning shape but they were intangible, so he wasn't affected by the anti-magi planar wall. Jack was copying Arlcard's method. He flew passed the anti-magi planar wall and continued ahead. He had been aiming his flight at the eldritch beholder's mouth. Without slowing, he flew forward and entered the gigantic mouth.
The eldritch beholder didn't expect that. She thought Jack would be stopped by her anti-magi planar wall because Jack was in lightning form. Jack was already inside her when she realized what was going on. She couldn't believe another fool entered her mouth for the second time today. She clamped her mouth shut, eager to teach the same lesson to this second fool.
When Jack's ghost form ended, Jack was deep inside the eldritch beholder's mouth. He didn't see the anti-magic planar wall inside here. Since it was so, he didn't dawdle. He unleashed one attack after another, all buffed by the lightning elements.
The same as when Emris did it, the eldritch beholder suffered damages for elemental attacks done from the inside. The most troublesome part of Jack's attacks was the pain the attacks caused. The attacks were powered by divine skill. The eldritch beholder experienced torture from Jack's lightning assaults.
"Despicable worm! I will devour you…!!!" The eldritch beholder exclaimed angrily. A massive torrent of dark energies filled her inside, drowning Jack.
Jack was protected by the Lightning God Incarnation. He had also cast Barrier after entering the mouth. The damage he received was greatly mitigated.
Hence, Jack continued dispensing lightning punishments for the duration of his divine skill.
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