CHAPTER 23.

The scene before me forced me to alter my charge. When I rushed in, I expected the ladies to be physically restrained and dealing with physical and sexual abuse.

What I saw was the three ladies dressed in pure white see through pieces of cloth that hid nothing to the eyes, and their skin was flush with health and vigor.

The only person restrained in the room was Suu, and although she looked mean and almost rabid, her startling beauty took my breath away.

She was tied with some kind of silk cloth to the bedpost, snarling at any of the cowled black robed attendants trying to get close to her.

Her small lithe body was sleek and sexy in the see through material and I could see her pale milk breasts with dusky areolas through the top.

Did I mention that my senses were also enhanced by my cultivation?

Minnie and Melody were being fed grape-like fruits by the other attendants and it bothered me for a moment that this purification thing looked more like a kind of fattening ritual, as if the women were being prepared for a feast. Or the beginnings of an orgy.

Whatever or whoever was coming here, we need to be gone before it gets here, I don't think I had the balls to play hero against a vampire lord or at least the local equivalent of one.

At my entrance, Minnie and Melody looked up from their placid positions on the soft looking sofas, surprise and joy clearly written on their faces, their state of near nudity forgotten.

Suu on the other hand snarled at the door and even when she saw that it was me, the angry snarl stayed on her face, but to me it only made her more attractive, like a feral white tiger.

Okay, I freely admit that I'm an idiot and even though now was not the time to be catching feelings, I couldn't help myself.

Melody was the first to speak up "William, what are you doing here? We need——"

She was about to say more when one of the cowled attendants stepped in front of her, “Who are you? Men are not allowed within the cleansing, who authorized your entry?"

Then her eyes went to my giant scimitar that clearly did not belong to me and then to the collar on my neck. She finally put it together.

She stepped forward and unhooked a one foot long rod from her belt and held it tip facing up at me. It looked like it was made from wood and had strange carvings and symbols on it. I immediately queried my implant to scan the rod.

"Slave, kneel and prepare yourself for judgment."

Clearly that's not going to happen, I raised my blade in the best approximation of a fighting stance I could manage. If I had to guess those rods were wands as they had no obvious offensive utility that I could discern.

The other two attendants moved to stand next to the first attendant, unhooked their own identical rods and pointed them in the same position at me.

I pulled out my knife and tossed it to Melody, hoping she would be able to free Suu and assist me in some way.

Ordinarily, anyone looking at this battle scene would think that the odds were skewed in my favor, but I've played enough video games, watched and read enough fantasy novels to know that it’s the magic casters you had to watch out for.

The women started swaying in place, saying a sequence of words and the rods began to glow a faint white in their hands.

Immediately, I fueled myself with the strength of sevenpeak humans and rushed at them.

But as I feared, I was too late.

Before my blade could split the leader and the subordinate to her left, she shouted the final activation word and completed her spell.

"Pairilis"

I froze in place, all my muscles unable to move and locked in by arcane means.

Desperate, I retreated into the high speed quantum processes of my implant, slowing time and giving me a few precious seconds to figure a way out of this mess."

My implant informed me that the spell's effect attacked my nerves with fell essence, causing targeted muscle spasticity, thereby locking up my entire body.

Also the final word in the spell was similar to the Gaelic word for paralyze and was most likely the activation command of the spell.

Suddenly I felt the spell's effect double then triple. The muscles in my stomach cramped in pain, muscles were not designed to be frozen in place, this spell could kill me.

My implant also informed me that the spell from the two other attendants just hit me.

They must have been seconds away from activating their own spells and even with dilated time, time was still moving with or without my approval.

I wanted to protest at the unfairness if it all, can't a brother get a break.

It was just a reminder that I needed to fix this quickly, because in most games after you get hit with paralysis, that's when the mage pulls out the powerful DPS spells to throw at you.

I thought of cycling essence but I doubted I would be able to free myself before a triple stacked set of magical nasty flew right at me.

My implant informed me that it was targeting the frozen muscles directly with refined essence to negate the fell essence and also reverse muscle spasticity and atrophy.

It would cost me two levels of essence at the absorption stage to immediately counter the effect and repair muscle damage.

Seeing as I had no essence stored in my body due to my essence hungry seed, I assumed it meant essence from my relatively rapid passive essence absorption. I immediately agreed

In a couple of seconds, the effect wore off and I fell to the ground as my muscles lacked the ability to support me. My blade slipped from my fingers making a loud thumping noise as it fell from my nerveless fingers

This simple act of falling saved my life as not long after my fall, several thick one foot long ice shards bombarded the passage way over my head, ripping the door to shreds and gouging chunks out of the white walls.

My mind blanked out at the sheer level of fire power that three seemingly harmless women could bring to bear. I was right to be wary of the mage class in this world, like any consummate gamer with a lick of sense would.

I looked up to see the women with wands gripped in their fists and pointed in my direction. My muscles felt like jello and there was no way I'd be able to defend against or evade their attacks.

Just when I thought I was a goner, the attendant to the right suddenly spouts blood at me.

I look directly at her and see her throat had been slit and she had abandoned her spell casting attempts to clutch her leaking neck.

The leader got a jab in the side; most likely her kidneys, before the remaining spell casters were aware of the reversal in our situation.

Then Suu twisted her wrist and flipped her to the ground, and then mercilessly plunged the knife into her chest.

The last attendant looked shell shocked at the instant loss of her comrades and immediately turned to cast a spell at Suu, when Minnie jumped on her back and began to pull her hair and scratch her face.

But to a mortal practitioner at the core formation stage, the attendant ignored her attacks and flung Minnie across the room like she weighed nothing. Thankfully, she landed on the bed, slightly concussed from the force of the throw.

Suu, blade in hand, attacked the attendant with a complex set of sinuous movements.

The attendant raised her rod and cast a quick spell that shoved Suu back, then she quickly cast another spell that made a thin blue barrier appeared around her body

The attendant was clearly not a fighter and simply blocked Suu's using her rod, but with her barrier, she was simply toying with her. Even lacking martial experience, her enhanced attributes allowed her to easily keep up with Suu.

Suu was nimble and could clearly anticipate her opponent's moves, but the attendant regardless of being a mage, still had higher than normal reflexes, agility and strength

Although Suu did not give the attendant the chance to cast another spell, she was forced to constantly dodge her overwhelmingly powerful physical attacks. Sooner or later, she was going to land a blow on Suu and based on the difference in their attributes, it was going to be a fatal critical hit.

Melody stepped behind the attendant with a chair raised and slammed it with all the force she could muster down on her head.

But the attack was unable to stagger the attendant even a little, much less allow Suu to land a critical attack at any of her vitals.

I roused my qi and called on the strength of ten peak humans through my body. Ignoring the burning pain moving through me due to strain, I rushed the attendant with all the speed I could muster and rammed her with my shoulder.

The force behind my attack overwhelmed her shield, causing it to fail

She flew across the room and slammed into the wall with a loud thud, causing the room to shake.

With the same dispassionate motion she used to take out the other attendants, Suu efficiently dispatched the third attendant.

I slumped to the ground, my knees barely able to hold me. My breath was heavy as I tried to fight the pain wracking through my body from essence strain.

While I was trying to recover, I suddenly felt my own knife pressed into the skin of my throat, Suu straddled my thighs, her menacing face directly in front of me.

"I saw you looking at me like a starving man, like a lecherous pervert, are we going to have a problem?" She snarled that last part and pressed the blade into my neck.

Seeing that she wasn't drawing any blood due to my core's passive protection, she pressed harder until she drew blood, I guess in an attempt to get her point across.

Even with the threat of death looming in front of me, all I could see was the softness of her soft cheeks, her pale white skin and her large luminous dark eyes that drew me in.

And let's be honest, there was a sexy, soft feeling woman with her thighs wrapped around me. If she rested a little lower, she would have received a reply to her question that would most likely lead to my death.

"Cut the guy some slack, he just risked his life to save us, besides, where else is he expected to look? It's not like our "getup" leaves anything to the imagination."

Suu ignored her, staring at me, her small nose flared in anger when she saw she was not getting the expected reaction with her threats of violence. It only made her more attractive to me.

She rolled off me and stepped back, watching me like a dangerous animal.

"What happened, did we win?" Minnie recovered from the mage's attack, staring around her at the bodies on the floor automatically answering her own question. I expected her to fall apart upon seeing all the corpses, but she left the bed and stepped up to the leader of the attendant’s body, spat on her corpse and began kicking her unmoving body with ever increasing rage.

"Go to hell you fucking dyke puta," She said with a look of glee and satisfaction on her face.

"Hey, no need to hate on the rest of us that play on the same team," Melody scowled at her immediately taking offence.

"Sorry Melody, but this bitch and her entourage have sexually abused us in every way short of penetration, claiming they're preparing us for their master."

"I understand, I also want the psycho bitch to rot in hell, rape is rape regardless of sexual orientation."

Minnie immediately rushed into Melody's arms to be comforted, it seemed to me that the two women had formed a strong bond during their time here.

Only Suu remained outwardly unaffected by their ordeal, I guess she wasn't the group hug type and clearly killing the three attendants was all psychological healing she needed.

Not for the first time, I was forced to wonder about the fucked up situation back on her Earth.

"The last person I expected to see again was you. Before today, I'll be honest, I thought you were working with the enemy. Sorry for not trusting you." Melody looked down, clearly embarrassed as she apologized

"No problem, water long under the bridge, you can thank me later with a beer and some fries after we find a way off this damned world." I said, trying to put her at ease.

"That body slam was over the top, how did you do that, it was like she was hit at full speed by a heavy duty rig," Her cop stare had returned, clearly trying to probe answers out of me.

"I gave them the cliff notes version of everything I'd learned so far, leaving out only details I considered pertinent to my person, like my awakened soul and my implant.

All the ladies perked up at the idea of cultivating and growing in power, but Suu was the most attentive. I could see it in her eyes, she wanted this power, and although I wasn't sure whether her purpose was only to facilitate our escape or settle scores on Nazi Earth.

I had to burst their bubbles when I told them about the suppressive qualities of the purification tower and that we had to leave pronto as there were most likely guards heading our way.

The ladies, Minnie and Melody to be specific, were less than pleased when they were forced to wear the cowled robes of the attendants. Suu, in keeping with her indifferent personality, was nonplussed about taking clothes from corpses. Made me wonder if she’d done this before.

After the ladies put on the robes over their revealing outfits, we quickly headed downstairs, hoping to get Siobhan , Zalla and maybe Aelia, and then make our way to the surface.

Finally, after all the torture and abuse we had endured, freedom was within our grasp. We were going to free the others, escape this sunless hell, leaving this death trap of a world behind.

As I stumbled out of the tower entrance, the sight that greeted me when I opened the door quickly stripped me of all my flawed ideas of freedom.

We stepped outside to be greeted by a dozen half-orc guards and two vampires outfitted in bright red armor guarding a smiling Tinuviel.

I tried to tell the girls to run back into the tower, but when I turned back, I saw that they were frozen in place, lost in some kind of trance.

I looked towards Tinuviel and was immediately caught in her hypnotic gaze.

It would have worked, if I didn't have my implant or I was still at the absorption stage or my core was in my stomach like everyone else. Even with all these advantages, I had no techniques other than sheer stubbornness to resist her demonic gaze.

But my implant reacted in the nick of time to counter her ability

<><><><><><><><><><>

Title acknowledgement protocol initiated…..

Partial Success, compiling data.

Mental manipulation detected

Analyzing essence signature

Generating effect profile

..........

Demonic Compulsion

Type: Ability (Mental Attack)

Essence Composition: Fell, Unknown essence types

Range: Unknown (Additional data required)

Essence Cost: Undetermined (No standard metric assigned)

Effect: Allows demons to directly influence the mind of their targets via their gaze.

Analysis complete, deploying countermeasures. Effectiveness of countermeasures has been enhanced by core location. Probability of countermeasure success: 85%

............

Core function discovered: Improved Mental awareness and resistance to negates 50% of essence based mental attacks)

Localized mental manipulation detected, source unknown

Countermeasures updated to account for new threats.

<><><><><><><><><><>

I felt a sharp pain as essence pulsed through my mind and countermeasures were initiated to resist her compulsion.

My mind felt clearer than it had ever been before. It felt like I had been living in a haze since I got here and now I was seeing the world clearly for the first time.

The possibility that my actions till this very moment may have been somewhat compelled was deeply disturbing. For how long had this been going on, I could not possibly determine.

With so many magical objects and beings capable of direct mental manipulation amongst my captors, it might have been the very moment I stepped through the event horizon with Astrel.

Regardless of how long it had been happening, I was now free, I would have to query my implant for a thorough analysis of my neural framework since I arrived on Zomyr.

Suddenly reacting on instinct, I spun and deflected a blade coming at me from behind.

My assailant was wreathed in shadows that did not entirely cover his body and in each hand, he held daggers so dark that they absorbed what little light was around it.

Through the shadowy haze surrounding him, I could see that he was only three feet tall, with red skin and a crown of tiny horns over his head. His yellow eyes gleamed with malice and his mouth filled with rows of very sharp teeth as he snarled at me in rage.

What surprised me wasn't his scary physical attributes or the haze surrounding him, but the fact that deflecting his blow sent me back a couple of feet and my arm felt numb even through the protection of my core.

Despite his size, he was far stronger than me. It was already clear to me that there was a difference in power amongst the various races, and for some reason, I got the impression that humans were far from the top of the totem pole.

I quickly glanced at the dozen half-orcs and Tinuviel, just to make sure they weren't pulling a sneak attack of their own.

I was also worried about the ladies, although their bodies had been cleansed of corruption, they had yet to begin cultivation and could easily be hurt by stray attacks.

The half-orcs remained calm, but based on the confused looks on their faces, I got the impression that they were unable to see the demonic assassin before me.

Only vampire's and Tinuviel maintained their composure, clearly not surprised by the attack

Tinuviel stood before me with a clear look of shock on her face that I had been able to counter the attack.

"You can see the shadow imp, how is this possible?" She said to me surprise, clearly evident in her voice.

Some of the Urgals glanced at her in confusion, clearly they were unable to see the "shadow imp."

It made sense in a way, as Zalla said, we were all slaves, there had to be a way to keep the slaves that oversaw other slaves in line.

It was possible that this entity had been watching me this whole time and with the “haze” on my mind, I would not have been able to detect him, even with my seismic-sense.

Tinuviel turned to the shadow imp and then pointed at me, "Kill him."

The Orcs tried to engage me at the misplaced order but she halted them with a slight hand gesture. Confusion was clearly written on their grotesque faces. Only the vampire's stood still remaining at ease.

Before I could center myself into some form of defensive stance, the shadow imp came at me in a blur of movements that should have been too fast even for my enhanced eyes to see.

But to my surprise and his frustration, I was able to party and deflect his attacks while holding a seven pounds blade.

After absorbing the mad flurry of attacks, I almost dropped the scimitar as my hands had become numb from the force of his blows. If I was still an ordinary human, I would have been flattened by his first attack, successful deflection or not.

I immediately roused my core to reinforce my body with essence and then pushed a sharp vibrating pulse at his blades, this technique was still incomplete as I had yet to incorporate a means to return some of the essence used back to my core.

I expected him to be stunned by the vibrations that would move through the daggers and into his body and even readied myself to take advantage of that eventuality.

But to my surprise, the dark blades somehow resisted my essence attack.

I had already wasted time preparing the unsuccessful attack, the imp rushed me in a flurry of moves and this time I was barely able to keep up and nearly lost my balance.

I had no special moves, no knowledge of any complex martial arts, just a few years of sporadic street fighting under my belt, both from the streets and in prison.

But now that the haze had been lifted from my mind, it seemed to me that the connection between me and the implant had strengthened, coupled with my core's location and my new mental countermeasures, I could now anticipate most of his attacks.

My implant was constantly feeding me his possible positions and weak points based on his footwork, center of gravity and previous attacks.

I received blurred augmented updates of his movements in the form of mirages and my new mental upgrades allowed me to keep up with his attacks.

I was getting tired of playing defense, time to put my extremely heavy sword to use.

After his last set of attacks, I immediately rushed him, empowered my body with as much essence as my body would allow without causing strain and raised my sword in a powerful overhead swing, he dodged my attack with a contemptuous smirk on his face.

But I had a contemptuous smirk of my own plastered on my face.

My implant had already shown me an augmented impression of his dodge and I adjusted my swing into a sideways slash.

As expected, he raised both his blades to party my attack, that annoying smirk still on his face.

But he had yet to taste the power of my ultrasonic cutting technique and at the last minute; just before our blades met, I queried my implant to begin the technique at full power. Now was not the time to pin my life on my clumsy attempts at essence manipulation.

The smirk was replaced with an empty look of surprise as my blade cut through his magical daggers and split him in two, before crashing into the stone floor. The ground exploded in small shards of stone with the force of my attack.

Turning around using the remaining momentum of my swing I moved to stand in front of the ladies, daring any of the half-orcs to test my blade, flush with confidence from my successful attack.

For a moment nobody moved and then Tinuviel stepped forward and asked, "How did you resist not just my compulsion but Abhartach's mind suppression field"

I had no idea what she was talking about, maybe she meant the other unknown mental manipulation effect."

I refused to answer and pointed my blade directly at her. I had to raise my blade and my gaze to properly address her which made things awkward, the smile on her face told me that she was aware of my discomfort

My voice wasn't exactly filled with confidence when I said, "Let us go, we refused to be kept as slaves a moment longer, send us back to our world."

Can you blame me, I was staring up at a nine feet tall extremely beautiful winged demoness and even though I could now resist her mental attacks, she still cut an imposing figure.

The smile remained on her face and I at least expected an entitled remark about how we were never getting out of her before she launched into the standard villain monologue.

But faster than lightning, quicker than my implant could process, she backhanded me so hard that I left a me-shaped impression on the wall of the tower.

"I really pity you outrealmer, you still don't understand how things work around here, the hierarchy of power determines the fate of all things."

"While I admire you courage, standing strong in the face of overwhelming odds and the things you have been able to accomplish that no outrealmer slave has been able to do in forever."

"But regardless, you forget yourself. You’r are mine, mind, body, soul, and after some time with the mind flail, I'm sure I'll have all your secrets."

She stretched out her hand and my broken body levitated towards her.

I raised my head in agony to look at her, but her features were obscured in a dim red haze as I struggled to stay conscious.

"Astrel was a fool to believe she could break one of your competence. No, a firmer hand is required to properly break you and from now on, I'll oversee your training personally."

“Many of my sisters have grown complacent, relying only on the strength of their compulsions to sustain obedience, but I know from time to time, that the application of pain to recalcitrant flesh is the true and tried method of compelling obedience from lesser forms."

Without looking back or making any gestures, she swung me behind her towards one of the Half-orcs behind, who caught me in a one headed grip that jarred my entire body.

I tried to scream, but the white hot agony that flashed through my mind wiped out any other thought from my mind.

"Take him to the rack and bring the girls to my quarters, they may have some use as bargaining chips during his training."

Unable to handle the crushing pain any longer or the sense of loss and hopelessness that overwhelmed me, my thoughts faded into nothingness.