[DCI] Chapter 68 - Power of the Mind

A thundering crash sounded to my left as the ground trembled a little. At first, I thought it was the Rib Titan somehow getting up, but when the nearby Skeletons fell over like lined-up bowling pins, I knew that wasn’t it. Through the created empty valley in the sea of calcium-loving fellas, Aisha came in with a power slide, ending up right by my side. Lulu popped out of a shadow to my right a moment later.

“We are with you,” she said with a ragged breath, clearly still recovering from her earlier mission to distract the giant bone daddy.

My fierce Berserker only grunted in agreement, already looking for targets to smash before her desire to kill and maim targeted her teammates. Therefore, I didn’t drag it out unnecessarily and nodded at them, starting to run up the cascading platforms to reach the main altar.

“I will not let you!” the evil Witch shouted but could do nothing more than annoy us with her illusions and send her minions our way.

Aisha and Lulu cleared the path for me, taking care of pretty much everything standing in our way. Additionally, I could see some simple spells hit the Skeletons ahead of them, clearly released by Levia, who now didn’t have any reason to pay any attention to the annoying cloak lady. Thanks to her protection zone, she could safely aid us with no threat to her health from the nearby skellies, who couldn’t move past its edge.

We bulldozed our way up without breaking a sweat. The cursed Witch hurled insults and expletives at us, warning us not to come closer or we would end up dead for good, no soul or body left behind, but we didn’t believe that liar. The only things capable of harming us were her underlings. And perhaps the octahedron itself. We still weren’t sure what exactly it was.

Quite a few monsters crowded the peak of the ritual site, hiding the altar behind their bodies, so it took a moment for my badass teammates to clear it up. I mostly made sure that no new ones climbed up, smacking those trying to with my mace, which I had picked up on the way here, and the soles of my boots. It was too entertaining not to send them tumbling back down amongst their skinny colleagues.

With the top finally safe, Aisha and Lulu switched roles with me, playing king of the hill while I was raring to go full detective on this slab of stone. Levia supported them with an occasional spell, most likely saving her big bangers for some kind of an emergency. We knew how great her curses and other magic tricks were.

“Alright. What secrets do you—mmwwwhmmmmm!”

Something suddenly cut me off by wrapping itself all around my head. I dropped my weapon once more and started clawing at the bold invader, which obviously was the floating cloak. This damned woman was clearly getting desperate.

With some struggle, I managed to yank the cloak off my face and throw it to the ground, pinning it under my boots. “And stay there, you bastard!”

Trying to keep my balance as the slick material attempted to trip me by tugging itself in every single direction, I cast my inquisitive eyes onto the altar in front of me. Without any surprises, it was covered in a plethora of glowing symbols and most likely words written in a language I could not decipher or understand. The giant octahedron buzzed above me, emitting strong blue light, but otherwise, it didn’t seem to be doing anything else.

“Aha! I knew it!” I smiled to myself after noticing a clear, horizontal line running all around the intricately decorated slab, near its very top. “This thing is not an altar! It’s a fancy coffin!”

“Get your dirty feet off me!” the angry Witch cried out from underneath my boots.

I chuckled to myself. “Or what? You are going to sprain my ankle?”

Choosing to ignore her for a moment, I ran my fingers alongside the tightly sealed lid of the magical sarcophagus, looking for some kind of a mechanism to release or move it. This thing had to weigh a ton with how thick it was. Side by side, it was pretty much equal to my fist. There had to be a trick to it.

But, after walking all around it and examining every single bit of the entire thing, dragging the naughty cloak all over the dirty floor with my shoes while at it, I found not a single clue on how to open the coffin. For a moment, I considered having a smack at the hovering geometrical shape but decided against it.

The chances that it was connected to the locking mechanism were low. The chances that it would release a powerful spiritual blast when shattered were rather high.

Therefore, that left me with only one option.

“Aisha! A helping hand, please!” I request some much-needed assistance.

My beautiful girlfriend was by my side in a flash, looking at me expectantly, a wide, almost manic grin twisting her sexy lips into a predatory grin. I gestured at the coffin with my head and stepped back, making sure the cloak did not escape from acting as my personal doormat. Aisha chuckled deeply seeing that and passed me her hammer, which I received dutifully.

She then put her hands on the lid of the sarcophagus, clearly intentionally put her ass up and legs wide while seductively leaning forward, and pushed with her everything. A roaring cry left her throat as she strained all her muscles against the relentless stone. I thought she would quicker pop a vein before achieving anything, but I was proven wrong.

Moments after she began, the lid skipped ahead a tiny bit with a crunching noise. That made my gorgeous powerhouse double her efforts and the stubborn panel of stone gave in a bit more. I tapped her shoulder when the gap near the side where she was pushing widened enough for me to comfortably look inside. She stopped, straightened up, received her hammer from me, and awaited further orders with the same, crazy smile. I landed a juicy smack on her jiggly butt and sent her back into the fray.

Afterward, I finally peered into the mysterious coffin. I expected to find something akin to one of those ancient mummies wrapped up in dozens of medical bandages that were meant to preserve the corpse for as long as possible, but what I found in there was an actual, quite lively-looking body, save for the woman’s extremely pale complexion.

The dead Witch looked like an average older lady dressed in long black robes, complete even with a pointy hat covering the top of her blond hair. Judging by her elongated ears, she must have been some kind of an elf, perhaps a half considering the aging process. After glancing all over her figure, I confirmed that she was missing a cape. The evidence in the form of wrinkles of her robes around her shoulders and neck was quite apparent.

Now, the issue was, what to do with the body? I briefly considered just slitting the Witch’s throat, or maybe fully beheading her, perhaps driving a stake through her heart, but something didn’t feel right with those ideas. I felt like that most likely wouldn’t do much good. This entire thing was too deeply involved spiritually.

“Woah!” I almost stumbled when an unexpected rusted sword hit the edge of the coffin to my right.

“Sorry!” Lulu apologized awkwardly, getting rid of my assailant with a few shadowy spikes. “I’m really sorry! It’s somehow slipped past me! It won’t happen again!”

I looked around and the number of Skeletons was really high. The main horde must have finally reached our position as an ocean of them kept climbing up the platforms. I could barely see Levia inside her safe zone. Aisha and Lulu were having a tough time keeping them off me.

Glancing back down at the coffin and the Witch, I got a quite silly idea.

“This should buy me at least a few more minutes.” I chuckled wryly. “Aisha! I need you here once more, dear!”

The drakan Berserker took a moment longer to show up but she was already briefed about what to do mentally so she quickly rested her hammer on the side of the sarcophagus. I nodded at her and she stepped firmly onto the carpet with a severe case of ADHD and freed me from the responsibility of keeping it still.

“Well, then. Pardon my intrusion.” I smirked at the cloak’s owner and hoisted myself up over the edge of her resting place.

With one confident motion, I slipped into the coffin, legs first. The gap was quite narrow, but I managed to fit through. A second after I was lying face-up on top of the dead Witch, I heard loud grunting and the screech of moving stone. A moment later, the gap was gone and I was locked up with a dead body as my companion.

Thankfully, the inside of the coffin was full of glowing blue runes too, so I could see pretty well in this place. With some minimal effort, I flipped myself over and laid down on my stomach. Raising myself as high as possible, I tried to ignore the old lady beneath me and studied everything else, including her apparel and all the trinkets she had on her.

About five minutes later, I still couldn’t come up with anything good. There was this tingling at the back of my head, definitely related to spiritual energy since I’d experienced it a few times with spells and abilities, but there was nothing obviously connected to it.

“Ah, hell. Let’s take a nap in here, why not? The girls will manage.” I snickered at the hilarity of this situation while shaking my head.

Turning myself over so that I was on my back again, I closed my eyes and tried to calm my mind and enter a meditative state. As soon as I began achieving that, the blue glowing symbols started appearing at the edges of my vision, slowly creeping closer and closer to the center. Soon, my closed eyes were full of them and I felt an immensely sharp pull yank me into somewhere.

I gasped and opened my eyes after an unidentifiable amount of time. Looking around, I saw nothing but darkness. Well, almost nothing. Giant azure flames danced around at various distances in every direction, emitting some light, but unable to illuminate the darkness, only myself, and one more person.

“So, you figured it out,” the evil Witch began with a somewhat impressed tone.

“Don’t get too proud of me. It’s only thanks to my amazing friend that I even dared to follow my silly ideas. According to her, I was the key to solving this issue. And it seems that she’s been right.” I smiled at her, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Arcane Divination. And an accurate one at that. Your friend must be a really talented Witch,” the woman mused.

“Don’t you know it?” I snickered. “Say, why won’t you make it easier for both of us and just tell me how to end this thing, whatever it is? She prophesied that I will take you down anyway, so there’s that. There’s no need for me to hurt you any more.”

“Hurt me?” She laughed openly and a sudden pain hit me right in the head, bringing me to one knee. “Boy, I’m not the one who will be hurting. You should have never opened your mind so ignorantly and let me in.”

I groaned under her mental assault, watching her slowly walk my way with an amused smirk. Gathering my mana, I hastily wrapped it around my mind, just as Levia had taught me a few times in the past during one of our casual chats. The pain lessened bit by bit as I shielded my psyche tighter and tighter, and I rose to my feet before the Witch reached me.

She raised a curious brow at me. “You are surprisingly proficient in the arcane for a simple brute. That’s rare for a physical fighter like you.”

I chuckled lightly. She must have misread my Class due to the abilities I had used during the fight outside. The flying handaxes could easily be identified as some kind of simple artifact weapons.

“I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not a fighter Class. I’m an Overlord. One that also likes to study some magic in his free time.” I winked at her, and she froze mid-step, her eyes widening to the brim. “Did you say that we are inside my own mind?”

Her expression changed in a flash, from collected amusement, to clear fear. She took a step back, all her body language screaming out her desire to run.

“Halt,” I commanded, imbuing my words with actual Command.

As expected, she froze again, this time against her own will. The only parts of her that moved were her eyes, shooting around in panic.

“Nice. See? It wasn’t that hard.” I smirked at her this time and started moving closer. “Now, will you be so kind as to tell me how to stop the ritual without triggering any dangerous reactions?”

“My body acts like a conduit for it. It redirects the crystal’s energy into the arrays engraved all over the ritual site. To disable it without causing a destabilization of the circuit, which might lead to a chain reaction through the main core and the remaining pillars, you need to reverse the spiritual junctures at seven points in my body,” the Witch answered with some leftover defiance in her tone.

“I bet it’s those damned seven chakra or chi points or whatever. Please, tell me none of them are anywhere near your lady bits. I can live without having to dip a finger in a corpse.” I groaned, rubbing my eyes.

“The root point is the closest to one’s nether regions as it’s located at the base of one’s spine but you don’t need to come into physical contact with them,” she replied.

“Perfect. How do I do that, then?” I queried.

“Just send out a spiritual pulse above each point and change the direction of the flow with your mana. Start with the top one and make your way to the lowest juncture,” the Witch instructed me.

“And remind me, where are all of them located?” I raised a brow at her.

“From top to bottom, at the top of your head, between your eyes, in your throat, near your heart, at your solar plexus, below your belly button, and at the base of your spine,” she listed obediently.

“Thank you. Now, get the fuck out of my head,” I ordered her with even more might and she disappeared in a blink, alongside the blue flames. “Can’t believe this entire thing worked. I need to pull more enemies into my mind in the future if they are affected by my Overlord skills.”

Leaving that idea for later, I shook my head and focused on returning to reality. Soon, I felt the uncomfortable pressing of the Witch’s motionless body into my back and lifted my eyelids. Fortunately, she was as dead as before. Therefore, I hastily turned over once more and tried what she’d told me since I had no idea how much time had passed in my absence.

It took a few tries, but I located and sensed the first point, changing the flow in about ten seconds of disrupting it with my mana. The rest of them followed much faster after having some experience in dealing with them and I reached the final one in a flash. Thankfully, pressing my finger into her abdomen through her clothes worked since it would have been a drag trying to flip her over. I wanted to avoid touching her weirdly well-preserved corpse as much as possible.

After changing the final point, the sigils carved in the inner walls and the lid of the coffin faded out, enveloping me in complete darkness. Suddenly, it started feeling a bit stuffy in here. And scary. But, just a moment later, it all turned pink as Rose phased herself through the side of the sarcophagus and bobbed happily above my face.

“Hi there, girl! Those runes must have blocked you from getting in, yeah? Glad to see that you are okay. Let’s save your treatment for after I get out of here.” I snickered as she tried to lick my wounds already. “Now, how in hell am I even going to achieve that? Considering that I’m not being rescued yet, the girls must be busy with their own stuff.”

Rose wiggled up and down as if to confirm that and I gave her a few gentle pats. Pondering over my predicament briefly, I remembered that I still had one charge of my Talent Draw available and got another silly idea. Swapping Aisha’s Piercing Roar with Tectonic Stomp, I found firm purchase with my back against the Witch and pulled my legs close to my chest.

“And for the moment of truth…”

I shouted for an added power since everyone knew that yelling out loud increased your strength, and invoked the ability in my legs, kicking up with everything I had in me. My feet slammed into the heavy slab of stone and launched it high up into the air. I watched it fly up and up while spinning slowly.

“Ah, fuck… Gravity…”

Within a flash, I grabbed the edge of the coffin and hoisted myself out of it right that instant. I didn’t even care about landing on my feet, I just fell to the ground next to the altar and rolled away moments before the heavy lid landed back in the sarcophagus with a wet smack.

“Oops.” I giggled to myself like a little girl. “Good thing we disabled that circuit before trying that.”

Shaking myself off, I stood up and glanced around. The remaining crystals lost their glow too, and the only thing that illuminated the area was a medium-sized ball of white light hovering above us, definitely the work of our inventive Witch.

As for the person in question, I couldn’t really see her anywhere, but what I could see was a sea of bones just lying around everywhere in sight. There was a huge heap of them rising up like five meters into the air, taking a quite cylindrical shape. Just as I was staring at it, its walls suddenly fell inside with a loud rattling noise and a few coughs reached my ears. A moment later, my three companions climbed out of the now much smaller hill of humanoid cartilages.

I hastily stepped forward and pulled my fierce drakan into a deep kiss, effectively shutting her Berserk down before it caused some unnecessary chaos. She wrapped her arms around me, dropping her hammer, and reciprocated the kiss with pure greed. One of her hands squeezed my ass and I chuckled into her lips. There was no stopping the horny.

Somehow, I managed to wiggle myself out of that delicious prison and she grinned at me impishly. As I stepped back, I found Levia by our side, looking up at me with somewhat expectant eyes. It was a slight surprise, but a welcome one. So, I leaned down to share a gentle kiss with my lovely elf too, cupping her chin up a tiny bit. Our moment wasn’t as long and I let Levia withdraw freely, appreciating the short show of affection from the serene Witch.

Before I could look to my other side, there was a soft thud, followed by a pained grunt, and I could imagine what happened without checking. Aisha could really get territorial at times. I was glad Levia didn’t have to worry about that.

“So, you did it?” my drakan mate nonchalantly asked, pointedly ignoring Lulu, who was massaging her side.

“Correction. We did it.” I smiled at her. “Don’t for a moment think that I could have done any of this on my own. I wouldn’t even be able to move the lid of that coffin to begin with.”

“Give yourself some credit.” She snorted.

“Likewise.” I winked at her. “You girls were incredible. You too, Lulu, of course.”

“Thanks.” The imp girl blushed darker pink. “Sorry again about that Skeleton.”

“No worries.” I brought my wrist up. “And it truly seems like we are done here. I have quite a few notifications and the clear announcement must be amongst them.”

“You are able to know your rewards already?” Lulu’s eyes widened a little.

“Not exactly,” Levia answered in my stead. “He has to wait for those to be assigned properly, but his artifacts tell us every detail about the process, including how long it will take and if there are any additional bonuses awaiting us.”

“She’s right.” I nodded. “Sorry, but we won’t be able to compare our rewards right away.”

Lulu giggled and glanced away. “I wouldn’t really want to do that anyway. It would be too embarrassing showing the meek rewards I got for barely doing anything this run.”

“No worries. This was just a curious thought. You don’t need to share anything with us. Well, maybe except for some of the loot we are going to collect while waiting for the next assignment.” I chuckled softly. “For now, I think we deserve a break. Let’s heal up, wait for the rewards to be announced, and maybe meet again to celebrate the victory. What do you think?”

“Oh. That would be a first. People usually only stay for as long as they can get some more loot and then go back home. Sometimes a fight can break out regarding that.” Our imp friend scratched her cheek. “I think it could be fun. Why not?”

“Alright. I’ll send Rose to get you when we are ready. If you aren’t by that point, just tell her to wait at or near your place and come when you are,” I suggested. “Now, let’s figure out how to get back up from these abyssal depths.”