167 There Is No True Genius Without Some Touch of Madness
“Do it.”
Lagartha said to both Shifa and Vihah who were on either side of her. As for Lagartha, she focused on strengthening the Green Prison. She was also preparing to restrain Eren from inside the prison.
The beastkins had a few difficulties casting their spells when they were in the Meta rank. Hence they would largely depend on their enhanced physical traits to battle with their opponents. However, given enough time and safety, their spells would prove more effective than normal ones.
Vinah and Shifa both concentrated as they prepared themselves to cast their spells. It helped that Eren was not allowed to leave the prison.
Eren felt mana fluctuations inside the prison. He knew something was up. He prepared himself to fight any incoming attack.
However, before he could realize or do anything about it, Eren was wrapped in a weird feeling. It was as if the space around him had diluted and become porous. The next thing he knew, his armor set was taken away from him. It was lying on the ground outside the prison, in front of Vinah.
Vinah was a space-element user. Her spell allowed her to manipulate space to a limited degree. However, she needed her sister’s assistance to pull the spell off.
Eren was stunned when he saw his Hex armor being taken away from him. He tried to recall his armor by using his connection with it. But it turned out, Shifa was creating spatial distance to prevent Eren from summoning his armor back to him.
“He…. He is a Hexer!”
Lagartha opened her eyes wide in shock when she wrapped her mana sense around Eren’s armor set and observed it keenly. She had tried to erase Eren’s mana signature off of it but was unsuccessful. That made her realize that Eren was a Hexer and he was using Hex gear.
“How? All your spells were a bit overpowered but they felt normal to me.
How the fuck are you a Hexer? What kind of abomination are you?”
Lagartha couldn’t make heads or tails out of Eren as she realized the mystery around him was only getting darker. She had come across a few Hexers and they were challenging to fight.
But they also had their limitations. They didn’t have much freedom when it came to spell variation. But Eren was able to cast all his spells as Hex spells. Being a Hexer was as natural to him as swimming in the water was for the fish. As such, he did not exhibit the anomalies in spell casting the Hexers were associated with.
Plus, the guy didn’t look like he was overly emotional or devoid of emotions. This was not a characteristic most Meta-ranked Hexers were associated with.
“I don’t give a fuck who or what he is. As long as he doesn’t have the armor on, I’ll take care of him. Hahaha!”
The almost-insane Tohir was the first among the sane party members to come up with a logical plan. He didn’t care that Eren had too many secrets about him. He just wanted the guy dead to lessen his potential nightmares. And in doing so, he had outclassed his sane companions.
‘There is no true genius without some touch of madness.’
Eren gave Tohir an ‘I’m impressed’ look as he had a random thought. He then chuckled before calling forth his tank-like spell.
Igni Lotus!
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
The darts were shot through at breakneck speeds when Eren became armorless. It seemed like Tohir was in a hurry. He didn’t want to take any chances with the caged beast anymore.
Eren was about to cast his movement spell to get away from the incoming darts. But he suddenly found himself unable to move because of the suddenly sprouted green vines that had latched onto his legs like pythons. The space around him also applied a distinct pressure against his movements, making him unable to move even an inch.
The darts finally found their mark. A bunch of darts hit Eren before dispersing. But not before applying the debuff on him. All four Spiders were witnesses to the event. They had made sure that Eren got hit with the darts with their combined efforts. And they were relieved when that happened.
“The thing about Tohir’s darts is that his debuff effect can stack. No matter what kind of artifact you have on you, it would soon be rendered useless.”
Lagartha said with a serious tone in her voice. Although she was happy that Tohir’s dart had found its mark, there was some part of her that was screaming that it wasn’t enough. As if her instincts were telling her this was a terrible idea. Therefore she declared Tohir’s spell special so that Eren would give up fighting his fate.
A task she was bound to fail.
Eren didn’t have any problem casting his spell even after being hit by Tohir’s stacked debuff. That’s because he had stopped using his regular mana core against the guy a long time ago after Mia left.
Eren’s infinite mana core and the mana that was supplied by it stayed unaffected by Tohir’s debuff. It allowed him to cast spells normally as if nothing had happened.
‘This fiend is casting an AoE!’
Lagartha could feel a weird mana fluctuation in the surroundings and immediately came to know that Eren was casting his spell. However, Eren losing his armor set had given her the confidence she needed.
“Tohir… more. Hit him with more darts. Don’t stop!”
Eren simply smiled when he saw even a stone-cold ranker like Lagartha panicking a bit. He stopped playing pretend. He stopped running. He stopped fighting the restrictions that were binding him. Instead, he focused on his fire-element spell.
“Something’s wrong. He is not stopping his spell. Run… run away!”
Lagartha remarked with a shaky voice. She decided to finally make a run for it. Even if she couldn’t maintain her Green Prison, she just needed to run faster than all her party members to have a chance at survival.
At least that’s what she had thought. But her hopes were crushed when she heard Eren’s voice.
“Too fucking late!
Igni Lotus!”