Chapter 66

Wrapped in a right black robe and face mask in an equally jet black cloth a figure could be seen running as fast as possible to put as much distance as possible from the place where they had abandoned the carriages.

He went on a diagonal direction from the central part of the jungle where they had abandoned the carriages and planned on going towards the nearby village to hide from the mage who was chasing after them.

Though this might be his intention, he knew deep down that he wouldn't survive past today and only hoped to keep the mage enough company in order to allow Cornelia to escape.

Just as he jumped over a branch and was about to jump across another branch, he felt his body weighing like a ton making him be pulled to the ground. With the sudden pull and increased weight, the shadow guard couldn't find the right balance making him land on the ground awkwardly.

'Gravity manipulation' that was the only thought remained in the mind of the shadow guard as he looked towards the incoming figure who was wearing a blue hooded robe with his face hidden under the shadows of the robe.

Knowing that his end was near the shadow guard did not show any fear on his face and gave the person who was going to kill him a cold look. With a chuckle the mage walked towards the guard whom he considered to be an ant and said "That's some nice guts, should I give you a 10 for your bravery? Well it doesn't matter how brave you are after all you are going to die".

With that the mage extended his hand and grabbed the head of the shadow guard who found himself not being able to move and found that his soul was being sucked into a vessel, rapidly, while his consciousness and identity fade.

With a look at his crystal ball which had white gas filled in it. These gases turned into several faceless forms every once in a while creating mouths which had screaming emoji forming on it. Looking at the crystal ball the mage had a confused expression and thought to himself 'Interesting'.

Without giving much thought to what he had just witnessed, the mage looked towards the next target who was another shadow guard and starting moving towards him.

Meanwhile within the water palace there was dead silence as if the entire palace had turned into a dead zone. However within an office there was a person wearing red robe seated behind the desk and was in deep thought while having his palm on his cheek.

This was the crown prince of Arcadia, Voight.

Knowing that because of goddamned luck and fate all his preparations went down in drain. Despite being exceptionally talented the crown prince could already sense his defeat. Though he had called an old ally to come and aid him in his last attack, he knew that he could not rely on this ally and would have to pay huge compensation even if he won.

He kept thinking where he had gone wrong. While his incompetent brother was frequenting brothels and loosing himself in list he worked hard to become a level 2 mage. While his brother was down gambling his mother's wealth, he would establish trade routes to create streams of income. While his brother was creating trouble along with his equally incompetent noble friends in merchant guilds, raping beautiful commoners children and incurring public wrath he would work hard in negotiations and creating valuable allies in his path to the throne. Till date he had not considered his brother as his worthy opponent and was only wary of his step mother, the imperial concubine who was also his brother's mother as she was a former princess of a small kingdom called Venice outside Arcadia kingdom's border and was very intelligent with abundant resources.

Since Venice was their ally kindom, Voight who was studious had long knew of their and his future opponent the imperial mother's capability. Studying the opponent and creating strategies to counter his enemy's strength for years Voight had felt he had covered every angle, still he had somehow failed.

If he had been defeated by his step mother's brilliant strategies he would have still be able to accept, but not knowing how he was loosing truly troubled him. Frustrated, Voight threw the paper weight on his table in anger and broke his window.

Knowing that he could loose, Voight had sent away every maid and servant in his castle as he knew his brother's attitude and had only minimum number of guards within it. With possible defeat Voight finally considered retreating and escaping the kingdom and went to work on it.

Meanwhile within the jungle the mage was having a feast day and went on killing every shadow guard and mercenary while sucking their souls inside his crystal ball. However the more he killed this group the more he frowned and deep in thought.

When he first killed the level 10 warrior shadow guard from the group he found something weird within their mind. Generally any soul or mind restrictions created through contract magic gets embedded in one's soul. This was the case for every shadow guard. In order to not get betrayed the Hall family had placed severe restrictions which shackled their mind from ever having thoughts of betrayal. This was created from when they were adopted and trained within the family.

Such contracts though not by warriors and knights can be seen through by mages of Rank 3 as their mental power would be incredibly strong. However what made this mage frown was not the contract but there was an unknown power, not of known magical origin manipulating their memories.

Generally big clans have connections with mages to have steady supply of contract sheets carrying the power of restrictions at different levels. However apart from mage families and secret sects no one had the techniques of memory manipulation and such technique was extremely common amongst Rank 1 mages.

In other words memory manipulation technique are standard throughout the entire mage sects as it is an extremely common skill which a mage learns from the moment he enters Rank 1 stage.

However the mage through refining the shadow guards and mercenaries souls into the crystal ball found a unique and unknown technique of memory manipulation. This was in the form of a block in the sea of collective subconsciousness.

Blatant memory manipulation could be easily identified as the soul would have suffered some amount of damage, although not life threatening but will limit their future potential. However this method used by an unknown source did not change the person's memory but rather made the person perceive something normal despite being abnormal. This though genius cannot be used to create fake memories or have a person completely under their control.

This is not identifiable even if a mage comes into contact with such person unlike memory manipulation which makes a mage easily identify it. This was found by this rogue mage as he was collecting and purifying these souls.

With this level of subtle manipulation being made on everyone the mage was quite interested on the other party and made contact with a soul of a mercenary he had killed last and tried to remove the block to see the person behind the screen.

Meanwhile Sean and Cornelia had already escaped from the vicinity and had entered the end of the jungle towards the nearby city. Despite the dark night they could see the various carriages near the edge of the jungle as merchants and mercenaries seemed to pass through safe trade routes.

Keeping his motor bike hidden before he could come in contact with anyone, Sean and Cornelia walked towards the exit of the jungle while both covering their faces and having a sword on their waist.

Just as he was exiting the jungle he heard a notification signal from his system. Without any change in expression he looked at the interface to see that it was from the software connected between the laptop and a pen which was encoded with memory manipulation program.

The notification was that someone had broken the mental block he had created on one of the mercenary whom he had given the file name "Merc 29".

With a single thought he remembered who was Merc 29. It was one of the archers within the squad who provided long ranged support for the team. He remembered her having long brown hair and had sat next to him during the dinner at stone's restaurant next with Liliana but couldn't remember her name.

His face almost changed as he didn't expect that someone could find his mental manipulation but slowly exhaled as he remembered the second level of defence he had made just in case something like this happens.

Meanwhile the mage scoured through the female mercenary's collective subconsciousness to identify the person responsible for the manipulation and finally arrived at the scene where a figure with blurry face using a weird metal like object and shooting the beasts within the jungle. This weapon was unique like a crossbow but worked way more efficiently than it.

The mage tried to look for his face but every memory of this person inside the collective subconsciousness of the mercenary Wass blurred and he couldn't even identify if it was a male or a female but could see that this person had traveled alongside the group into the jungle. Suddenly the mage had an epiphany as he looked towards the direction he had seen a figure escaping at the begining of the hunt and realised it could be that figure.

Thinking for a few moments the mage withdrew his gaze and started walking deep within the jungle as if he was not interested in hunting that person. Though he was interested in this technique he did not want to abandon his plan to harvest souls which is necessary for his further improvement just to investigate a thing which had almost no use to him.

Meanwhile Sean and Cornelia entered the city which was quite small in size by the name Gurney and made their way to a decent Inn to stay for the night.