Chapter 288: Queen of Death, Diya!

Just where did Uhtred get such a movement technique from? It was almost as if he could keep getting faster without feeling the pushback and drag that came with climbing to such high speeds.

His figure kept becoming smaller and smaller as they sped past the boundaries of Stormcaller’s city and into the forest, until, eventually, the Prime Sapien had totally lost sight of him.

The Prime Sapien skidded to a violent halt, carving deep trenches in the ground with his blistering momentum. He panted heavily, the strain of using [Blitz Bombardment] for such an extended period taking a toll on him.

His eyes scanned the surroundings sharply, a slight feeling of dread building up within him. His current situation was a sharp contrast to just a minute ago when he had revealed his true, cold nature and looked down at Uhtred like a hunter observing his prey.

Now, he felt more like the prey than the hunter...

It was a feeling he didn’t like at all.

He growled, his eyes locking onto the deep foot trails in the ground — the aftermath of Uhtred’s movement technique. It left a clear path leading to wherever Uhtred had come to a stop.

The Prime Sapien kicked into motion again, this time at a slower pace than what his [Blitz Bombardment] afforded. He moved purely with his high Agility, following Uhtred’s trail.

All the while, the feeling of dread kept on growing. He considered retreating back to Stormcaller’s fortress, but dismissed the thought immediately. Stormcaller was surely a goner by now.

His lightning might was truly terrifying, especially with the transmutation he’d just gotten. But his defeat was inevitable. There was no way he was coming out of a fight against so many top human ascenders victorious.

"So damned foolish!" The Prime Sapien cursed as he ran. "All he had to do was play along and let the humans do what they wanted in his territory!"

The more the Prime Sapien thought of Stormcaller’s volatile nature, the more pissed off he became, until eventually, he came to a sudden stop, then out of nowhere, began to laugh wildly.

"What are you doing, Thirty-one?" he facepalmed. "Aren’t you being just like him right now? Chasing after someone you clearly can’t catch, just to satisfy your ego?!"

He pinched the bridge of his nose and forced a series of shallow, shaky breaths, trying desperately to regain control before it was too late. Then abruptly, in a weird turn of events, his right hand twitched and clawed savagely toward his chest, driving straight for his own heart like a weapon.

Just in the nick of time, his left hand shot over and seized his rogue wrist, barely stopping the lethal blow inches from his chest. An agonizing grimace contorted his face as a violent, frantic struggle erupted within his own body.

To an outsider, it looked almost like he’d suddenly been possessed. His hand moved like it had a mind of its own, clawing at where his heart lay like he wanted to kill himself. Meanwhile, the rest of his body wrestled against the urge visibly.

"Stay your hand, you damned Neanderthal!" he barked, almost like he was talking to someone else. "We’re giving up this chase and leaving now!"

The struggle continued for several long seconds, until finally, the hand eased and the Prime Sapien regained control of whatever had gone wrong with his body.

He heaved heavily, gasping for air after straining himself that hard for those seconds. But then suddenly, his head whipped to the side, his cosmic essence cycling in an instant from a danger he sensed.

But it was too late.

A cloud of grey smog had just begun to spread out of his body in the direction of Uhtred, who had appeared at his side out of nowhere, when he suddenly felt two soft hands grab him by the head from behind.

He went into shock in an instant, snarling as he attempted to shift his attack to the second figure that had appeared.

But that was the last thing that went through his mind.

He couldn’t tell what exactly happened, only that he felt a weird pressure in his head, and his thoughts began to disconnect until he couldn’t form any at all.

Vaguely, he realized that some sort of weird magic was being used on him, and he instinctively tried to activate the fail-safe in his body...

The thought didn’t get a chance to fully form before he blacked out.

.

.

With a loud thud, the Prime Sapien’s body fell at Diya’s feet like a lifeless doll.

"...Well, that was anticlimactic," Uhtred said from the front, already a fair distance away from where the Prime Sapien had begun to cast his [Cloud of Ailment]. "Who’d have thought dealing with a ’Prime Sapien’ would be so easy?"

He strode back toward Diya and looked down at the Prime Sapien’s deformed and lopsided head.

"Fucking hell, Diya," he muttered. "What exactly did you do to him?"

"I targeted his Reticular Activating System and triggered a hyper-accelerated cellular growth," Diya supplied casually, as if expecting Uhtred to understand her words. "The sudden cancerous mass in his upper brainstem spiked intracranial pressure, severed his ascending reticular pathways, and—"

"What the fuck are you talking about, Diya? English, please?" Uhtred cut in.

Diya paused and looked at him.

"Well, you’re the one who wants to learn Healing Magic. Stuff like this is also part of it."

Uhtred rubbed a palm across his face. "Ah well, okay. Can you tone it down for the meantime? Just tell me what you did and whether this guy’s dead or not."

"I fried his brain with a rapid cancerous tumor to take him out," Diya said, deadpan.

"He’s still alive though, just... a vegetable right now. I can heal him back to normalcy after we secure and lock him down back at the Capitol, but he’ll likely not come out the same. I guess I should have tried using..." Diya suddenly trailed off, noticing Uhtred’s sudden silence.

She looked up at him and saw him staring at her with a weird expression. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time... truly seeing her.

"Just like that? Despite the level difference?" Uhtred asked slowly. "Are you saying you could just do something like that to me if you wanted...?"

Diya remained silent, watching Uhtred’s expression, then shrugged with nonchalance.

"Who knows? Maybe if you pay more attention to my teachings, you’ll also be able to do the same," she said.

"As for this guy," she kicked the limp body of the Prime Sapien. "His case was different. His body was surprisingly easy to manipulate. That’s what I was saying earlier. If I’d known it’d be this easy, I’d have gone for a gentler method. Now when I heal him, his mind might not work the same as before to give us any information..."

"Do you think it has something to do with that weird state we found him in?" Uhtred asked with a frown. "He was speaking to his hand as if it had a mind of its own..."

"Hmm. Very likely," Diya said, staring pointedly at the Prime Sapien’s right arm, then his left. A frown colored her face immediately as she noticed a difference. She knelt to his level and violently ripped away his shirt, exposing his body.

"What in the Frankenstein fuck is this?!"