Chapter 351: Mental Defense

It was an invisible, untrackable flow of energy, blasting into the walls of Seth’s psyche as the monster planned to inflict Seth’s mind with the sensory illusion Uriel and the others were suffering from.

Mental attacks are the most lethal and unavoidable type of attack, targeting the very psyche of a lifeform, an attack that even one’s will couldn’t hinder — a threat that was meant to be Seth’s Achilles’ heel, yet could barely put a dent in his mind.

The same could be said for every evolver out there — even in the greater cosmos, only very few people had means of shielding against a mental attack.

And no one could remain immune unless they had a title or item which could help shield them from the attack; it had nothing to do with strength or rank, but mostly depended on mental resilience.

And Seth had one of these titles: Charmed But Unfazed.

A title gained by slaying his first charm beast victim, and today it proved itself handy — Seth’s eyes flickered coldly, instantly detecting the attempt, the eight-eyed silhouette sinking into the trees, vanishing faster than Seth could track.

But this exchange allowed Seth to deduce a reason for what was happening, and it seemed his gut was right — ’those feline corrupted were strong and ferocious, but were they really enough to kill Uriel?’

The same evolver who had an ability that allowed him to reverse the flow of time and undo all effects, a skill that affected the grand scale of the whole planet.

Seth found it hard to believe that a defiled would have been enough to push Uriel to such a state...

So did that mean that they were already near the corruption seed? But that didn’t make sense — if it were, the system would have notified them.

Especially his flash sale system that fed on the blight...

So if that was so, and they were not near the seed, then why the hell would they encounter a charmed beast this early!

Seth felt a shiver travel down his spine; he wasn’t specifically scared of the charmed beast but concerned with the implication of what its presence this early on meant.

For a charmed beast to be attacking this early meant there would definitely be more than one, and worse, their power levels would be different.

Seth felt the cold pressure of the danger the corrupt zone bore, facing awakened charm beasts — more than one, at that — and even he felt a trickle of nervousness.

After all, this was no joke — he had seen what this monster had done to his friend and the group, and if he didn’t do something, that reality would repeat itself.

He swerved from left to right, evading trees and getting close to Uriel and the others, and he could feel the terror and fear in their eyes.

Their minds had been infected and plagued with vivid perception override, and everything they were suffering was all in their heads, and snapping out of this illusion was close to impossible.

It was usually harmless all on its own, merely causing the prey to be mentally paralysed long enough for the predator to come and snap them in two.

Seth frowned, his eyes narrowing as a faint shadow flickered at the edge of his vision, causing him to whip his head towards the spot and see nothing...

Around him, perfect replicas of his bone spear began to materialize, spiraling around his frame like a halo of slaughter and death, the dense, grim bone essence mist swirling around him.

Force Embodiment working its magic, as he tugged on the class skill Shadow Travel, while simultaneously activating a shadow avatar.

His main body sinking into the shadows while the avatar materialized in his place, the action playing out so smoothly, measured, and fast that it was not noticeable.

The four pairs of eyes flickered in the shadows maliciously, a clatter of chitin clicking and snapping in the dark.

Its frame silently dissolved into the shadows cast by the dense trees, white silk substances spilling from the trees in its wake as it prepared for confrontation.

In the darkness, Seth flowed through the formless current of shadow, tracking his stalker’s outline in the dense covering of the trees as they moved.

The beast was an arachnid, a spider-like corrupted, and from its dense and vile presence provoking intense repulsion, Seth could confirm it was a charmed beast.

His essence flow went cold, feeling the mighty carapace of the monster glistening through its shadow, the monster carrying a revolting, nightmarish aura.

Its legs piercing gently into the earth as it travelled through the trees, knitting its own web domain, mapping the battlefield before a battle even began.

Seth’s heart went cold at the sight from the shadows — the monster indeed bore the sinister intelligence of a charmed beast.

The beast tried to snare him in its mental web, yet Seth’s mind remained resilient, so now it was making moves for a physical snare.

Its massive sacs spilled fluid chemicals, materializing into thick, almost bulletproof spider webs. The ingredients were actively being adjusted by the second as the spider calculated the thickness, the strength, and the width — everything accounted for.

Seth drifted in the shadows, mapping the beast’s biology — how its body worked as it moved, its balance, its natural weapons, and of course, its weakness — and he found it.

This monster arachnid was armoured like a metal ghoul, but Seth still spotted a gap in its defenses, or at least what he hoped to be a weakness.

The soft piece of attachment kept the monster’s head on its body, a meaty section that allowed for the head’s control to be extremely flexible.

Yet it was a flaw in the open. Seth’s gaze sharpened in the sea of shadow as dark whirlpools formed from the shades cast by the trees it formed its webs around, sharp grey-white tips poking out of the shadow gates, the bone spear’s tip oozing with a dark, thick liquid of marrow-eroding poison.

Taking aim, as his mental scan covered the land above, powered with thick bolts of annihilation force sparking from the tips.

The tiny, hard strands across the oversized spider’s legs trembled from the vibration in the air, the attack sensed before it was fully set into motion.

But Seth activated the Dimensional Strider ability all in one go, the spears tearing into folded space and sharply converging on the beast before it could process retaliation.