Continuing to run but trying to keep it as quiet as he could, Ben used the time to think about what he knew and what it implied.
There were demons who could take over others and those same demons were time magic users, both of those facts seemed true with the only matter being how many there were who held those skills, especially considering that Helori believed awakened skills were at use in the mix.
Given what he knew of how the invasion took place there shouldn’t have been any awakened skill holders who’d come through the last gate but given there were at least a hundred demons experiencing the benefits of prophecy then that meant it couldn’t just be one or two of them, so what did that imply happened?
Did a group of awakened break their self-imposed rules and come through or did more than a few just so happen to awaken the same skills in the weeks they’d been there?
Or maybe it’s just the particular skills that have been awakened? I’ve been assuming that soul magic is the bit that's being used to take it over but it is in essence something acting the same way as hive mind.
…Okay, better than hive mind since it doesn’t have the same limitations of only being available within the range I can connect to others. Ugh stupid demons and their decent affinities for life and death, they could absolutely have some other soul-based skill helping them that awakened instead.
And who’s to say it has to be a group of awakened pulling this off? If whichever one managed to awaken whatever weird soul skill this is and found another that awakened their time magic then maybe the first got control of the latter and has been able to apply their effects to everything in the group of demons it gathered? It’s a working theory at least but I’m going to need to try and confirm it somehow. But later. First thing first, let’s get a little farther away.
Distance was the most important thing to get and he wanted it in spades, running as fast as he could while also observing the chimeras’ performance on a deeper level now that he was using their bodies as his own.
With his awakened attributes, the only thing they beat him on was speed but overall their performance was excellent, the exact sort of thing that would be powerful in a fight, even if his curiosity was pulling him away from that and in a different direction.
Since coming back, there hadn’t been much opportunity to experiment with hive mind. It was a skill that was essentially illegal for him to use in all but the lightest touches after all, with the only reason he was still keeping it up being that the other three would still be under the lingering effects of Thera’s charm if he didn’t, but it was the way Thera had been taken over that tempted him to try something. Could he force them to cast spells?
He had control of their minds and bodies but did that mean he also had power over their souls? With how much danger they were in it was worth asking for the help it could bring and he looked at the skills each held before making any attempt.
While Azeezol had her corpse song she held an affinitied magic too in the form of light magic, likely not bothering to mention it during their initial meeting because it was only at the first level, and the two chimeras had a few options between them as well.
The first of the remaining by the name of Joois held both fire and water at the first level, not out of any desire to be a proper mage but instead to use in what had been his main profession as a cook before the invasion, while the second, Queemit, held an air magic at the second level she’d developed largely in part to let her make a cool breeze for herself in the equatorial city she’d grown up in.
All of them were too weak to be of much practical use and mana quantity hadn’t been something Vividus’s alteration would affect but they were options to consider and he immediately tried to take advantage of them, using one to create a breeze to cool them down as they ran while another pulled some water from the air and feeling both attempts work, with a success that would have had him beaming if not for the situation they were in.
It wasn’t something he’d be able to use often, there were few situations where he’d be legally allowed to do it at all, but he now held a method that would let his vast magic knowledge be applied to something other than just his enchanting and he immediately put it into practice as he took advantage of the light magic Azeezol held to both heal their wounds and buff them as best as he could, finding a different limit to his skill.
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Using their magic pulled from their pools, not an inherent problem since he could give some of his own over but still something to be aware of, with the additional issue being that he was limited by their level of skill. He knew up to and including what a third-tier light magic was capable of but he was playing with significantly lower limits no matter how much power he could shove into any of them to get it.
Still, they moved quicker and their wounds healed, letting them get the distance he wanted just a little faster as the hours wore on.
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It was long after night had fallen that he finally stopped, with Myriad and Helori telling him they’d be relatively safe where he had ended up as he let himself fall to the ground.
Even with some light magic at his disposal, that really did end up as more helpful to the others than himself, with his body still as incompatible with such a low level of power as ever and he took his time catching his breath while he rubbed his sore legs.
He’d gotten his distance but if they wanted them he didn’t know how long it would last when just as importantly, he was going to need to go back anyway. All he’d claimed for himself was some breathing room and once he’d caught his breath he finally released the hold he had on the other’s minds, freeing them as the remaining three of his group looked around in confusion.
“What happened?” Azeezol asked, her head darting around as she took in the fact that not only were they in a different section of the woods entirely but also had lost hours of the day. “Have we been captured?”
“No. Long story short, it looks like there’s probably a couple awakened demons in this group, at least one of whom was able to take control of the rest of our group including Thera. Now, you guys didn’t really get the chance to see how powerful she is but we’ll leave it at ‘overwhelmingly so’ for now and they tried to use her to cast a dark spell on you all. I’m immune to mind attacks though so I got us to run away and now we’re safely here and while it is actually significantly more complicated than anything I’d just described, I’ll give you the long version while we eat.”
His body was craving any sort of nutrient by that point and he could tell from the connection he’d had with the others for so long that they felt the same, even if they were trying to keep focused on the emergency at hand, so he pulled some supplies from his rings to hand them out to eat.
He’d rather have cooked but didn’t want to draw any more attention to them that a fire could have brought so they made their way through the dried goods and water he had as they listened to the full story of what happened, all chewing stopping by the end.
“You took us over the same way the demons did?” Joois asked, looking horrified while Ben shrugged.
“It was that or abandon you since the moment you were charmed you became nothing but a liability. Of course, while I’d like to think that being taken over by myself is a bit better than having it done by a demon, if you’re not happy with it you’re free to go to one of them instead.”
“Ignore him,” Queemit said. “Thank you for saving us and so what now?”
“Now we’re trapped alone so deep in the woods that I don’t know how many days or weeks it would take to get out without a space mage to use and frankly, I wouldn’t even try without having Thera with me so here’s what’s going to happen. Everyone get some rest, I’ll wake you all in a couple hours. From there, we’re finding ourselves a demon to extract as much information from as possible. Once we have that then we’ll evaluate and decide what to do again from there.”
“And how are we finding a demon if they can predict where we’re going to be?” Azeezol asked. “That sounds like a good way to end up in a trap.”
“There’s no way they can look too far into the future,” Ben told them. “It has to be at a scale of minutes at most, otherwise the branching potential paths would get too thick and complex for anything to figure out on such a minute level. With that being the case we have options and I have my eyes in the sky looking for the best one we can take so for now, don’t worry and get what rest you can. There isn’t going to be time for much of that until this is done.”
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Once the others had slept for a while as he kept guard, he woke them up and started moving, following the directions Myriad and Helori had given them.
He’d asked the gods to find as distant a demon they could, one separated from the rest of the group that they’d have at least a few minutes to get to it before it could go out and get some help in the hopes they’d be able to trap it so Ben could read its mind and memories for all that was worth, all to find whatever clue he could get as to the ones who were pulling the strings as they made their way over.
This time they were the hunters, keeping stealthy as they approached their target as the gods watched its every movement, the stray demon that was searching the perimeter completely unaware of their presence still until its future solidified and it saw one where it was chased and trapped, unable to escape.
Its hunters were too powerful and help was too far away as the one that controlled it made the only choice it could, not knowing the gods of the world were watching as it happened.