“Did Jac abandon his post?” Kyrion asked from atop the giant woman’s shoulder.

“The fast one is going to assist our brethren.”

“Ah. That would explain all the corpses.” Kyrion looked at the many dead and unconscious humans and sighed. Sure, unconsciousness was more common, but it was clear when he was infected with the manipulation effect.

“He is very weak to suggestion.”

“I see…” Kyrion continued to sit on the giant woman’s shoulder. Injecting various experimental drugs and venoms Karl crafted. None of them had a visible effect, and they hadn’t even seemed to notice.

“So, Lich, just how strong is that new form of yours?”

Kyrion raised an eyebrow. He could have sworn that the creature he killed was named Deathlord. “Lich? Just a lich?”

“Well you evolved into a smaller human form.”

“Ah, that. I am no lich, I have evolved into a lord.” Kyrion said in a cocky tone.

“A lord?”

“Why would I settle for being just a lord of death? It’s just so drab.” Kyrion drew a line of space with his D.E. and teleported the head and core into his domain.

The creature fell to its knees and the earth opened up and consumed the remains, which was beginning to worry Kyrion. The Planet shouldn’t be this active.

Opening up his senses, informed him that the spell he placed to create a hand of molten earth, had taken on a life of its own.

“I’m starting to get the feeling my presence is causing more problems here than solutions.” Looking down at the dozens of bodies, and the disappearance of the other two giants. Kyrion called Kilo.

Kilo’s phone went straight to voicemail. So, Kyrion called Jin, who didn’t answer. Which would make sense if he was busy. Looking down at his still severed hand irritated him slightly as a direct fight would be a pain.

Still, he’d check on them.

Jin moved his head to the side as a stinger as long as a spear passed by his neck barely missing.

Jin then moved forward and Slashed his Phoblade upward, slashing the stinger in half.

The Hornet ejected the broken stinger, forcing Jin to roll to the side as a new one grew. From where the old one had been.

“Oh come on!” Jin parried the slash at his neck before using his blade to sever its torso. Sadly he saw a vision of his death as a blade passed through his spine.

Canceling his attack, Jin spun, getting behind the hornet and slashing down at its wings as three Photon daggers buried themselves in the bug monster's head.

“Oh, Jac! Thanks for the help! But that was close.”

“Shatter,” Jac said as the hornet's head exploded sending ichor and viscera everywhere.

“Oh, no. Jac, you’re one of us,right?”

“Stop running you damned demon!”

Jin threw himself to the side as Jac slashed down on empty air. The two people with three letter words that started with a J, eyed each other in desperation.

“You’re a fast kind of monster aren’t you. Pierce! Pierce! Pierce!!!” Jac threw three daggers at Jin, who proceeded to dodge to the left and redirect the third.

“What’s going on?” Chiyo noticed the fight as she returned from escorting the injured.

“Jac is possessed!”Jin yelled in her native tongue as a dagger in his leg sent him to the ground reeling.

“Really?” Chiyo drew her katana and cleared the gap in moments. She was slashing towards Jac’s stomach.

Jac barely managed to dodge using his enhanced senses and had to activate his ability at the lowest settings to keep up.

Pushing his slowed time allowed him to keep up with the blows but not surpass them. After ten seconds of slashes, which were about two minutes to Jac, an opening in Chiyo’s reactions appeared and a blade passed through near one of her kidneys. The wound closed in moments but the pain nearly sent her into shock.

Chiyo jumped back which left her open for three backup daggers to fly towards her neck and torso.

“Move!” Chiyo’s father moved in front of the blades using his body as a shield.

As the daggers sunk in, no blood flowed from the wounds and his body erupted into a pillar of light. When said light faded, the only things lying on the ground were a bone ornament and a strange blue marble.

“Grandpa? Grandpa!” Chiyo’s eyes landed on the pile of dust where the items lay and her eyes went bloodshot and her muscles seemed to grow. Despite not physically changing, her aura of power made her seem monstrous.

Ander punched the ground in rage, the old man had dropped him that far knowing he couldn’t interfere. From there he began the process of crawling forward, his body failing him as his vision faded.

Jin pulled the blade out of his leg and drank an emergency potion, Kyrion had given him when suddenly, his brain seized and he passed out. The wound in his leg closed in seconds.

Jac was pushed back even with his abilities to slow time as his body failed to keep up which forced him to use his trump card. While retreating, Jac withdrew a syringe stabbed it into his leg, and pressed down. The effect would take a second to trigger, and in a battle like this, every second counted, as well as a controlled acceleration. His bones were already hurting and his muscles were strained. If he gave up now, the monsters would kill him, then his mother. He must protect his mother.

“Out of my way!”

Chiyo and Jac moved fast enough to leave behind shockwaves and after images where they cut the Earth was torn, metal clashed and nature was disrupted. The friction of their movement caused the grass itself to catch fire.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

To the injured witness most of the battle was beyond sight, proving that while dangerous, the Esper program succeeded at creating a monster, while the recent knowledge increase in Qi could match it blow for blow.

Suddenly a red-haired man with black sclera and green eyes teleported between the two of them. His expression showed

“Sit down and breathe. If you continue this senseless battle I will be forced to knock both of you out.” Kyrion said as he withdrew his great club.

One opponent was enraged due to a relative dying in the crossfire, and the other was currently seeing everyone as an enemy.

“Kyrion! Help me with this beast!”

“Wait, you see me as me? What exactly are you fighting?”

“A four armed gorilla with three heads! It’s right there!”

“Ah. Jac, you have a head wound, take the healing potion I gave you.” Kyrion said calmly as he held a hand out towards Chiyo.

“Don’t you dare protect him! Move!”

“Give it a moment. Where’s Kilo?” Kyrion held his hand out in the universal sign to wait.

As Jac downed his potion, he passed out momentarily as two sides of his brain began to cannibalize each other as the man's mind was overwritten, destroyed, and restored. However, something was wrong. The man in front of Kyrion was an Esper, they held the same abilities, and yet the color of his eyes was pink and his hair was a mix of blond and white. The surgery that had been done on his face and bones was broken down and flushed as things settled down.

Jac looked left, then right as he held his head.

“This isn’t right. What's your name?” Kyrion asked calmly.

“Name? Your? What?” Jac responded.

“Who are you?” Kyrion crossed his arms.

“You.”

“I’m Kyrion.”

“I’m Kyrion?”

“You're dumb.” Kyrion squinted.

“You’re dumb?”

Kyrion sighed. “Convenient amnesia. Looks like your mind has fused but the memory bank has been overrun. Yet something about that brain of yours seems familiar.” Kyrion reached out to touch the confused man's neck.

A blade cut into Kyrion’s right arm only to be caught and held in place by muscles clenching around the blade in a way muscles shouldn’t be able to. “Now isn’t the time for vengeance.”

Chiyo grunted and tried to retrieve her sword only to fail as her strength wasn’t enough to break it out.

“Give me back my sword!” Chiyo demanded.

“Now isn’t the time.” Kyrion’s hand connected with Jac’s head, as Kyrion forced mental mana into Jac in a rather brutal manner where he moved through certain areas that were unnatural. As it rarely comes up, the shape of one’s brain changes when mana is added, and like a fingerprint, each person has a unique pattern heavily dependent on one’s soul. Every shard shares this magical pattern once they gain access to magic or their world's equivalent. It was also one of the factors that proved Psycho wasn’t him, as the wavelengths didn’t quite match.

Jac let out a gut-reching scream as blood flowed from his eyes and nose.

“What’s wrong?” Asked Chiyo.

“He’s a partial match…What have they been doing to these people?”

Chioyo’s rage surpassed Kyrion’s muscle control and she got her sword free.

“Move!”

Kyrion’s attention on Jac’s brain faltered as something hit the back of his neck.

“Are you trying to kill me? If so, you aimed a little too low and you aren’t strong enough to sever my brain stem. It is heavily reinforced for a reason.”

“Why are you acting calm!”

Kyrion turned his head and eyed Ander’s fiance with a gaze that could freeze an ocean. As though what was behind those eyes had separated itself so far away from humans that it was alien to most people. The sensation of an unknown factor with unknown emotions and a motive that was just as lost caused any who saw it to freeze.

“So. That's his pissed off face. Didn’t think you could get that way.” Ander sighed.

Kyrion blinked four times causing life to return to his expression. His voice was calm and dangerously clinical. “This artificial Esper program is likely much more inhumane than I expected. The average Esper is resilient to mental influences and mind control by default. Some of the artificial espers, the weak ones in particular, are also somewhat resilient. But, Jac here, he has no mental defense, worse it seems he was made to be very weak to suggestion, and outside influence. Who he was, along with his free will was taken from him. One of our foes was a master of mental manipulation, they must have turned his allies into enemies and vice versa.”

“What else?” Ander asked.

“The experiment to create him uses a portion of my brain I use to control various cognitive functions. It was grafted artificially and grown somewhere, that's where they get the root of their powers.”

“So, one of your shards is being kept, and used as a resource farm to create Espers.”

“I won’t say, as it is just a hunch. But the turnover rate is probably in the millions. Chiyo, just talk to him for a minute, you’ll notice the damage.” Kyrion let go and walked over to a tired Ander.

Chiyo’s anger faded so that she could question her foe. Her rage ended and her mind returned long enough to grieve.

Jac didn’t so much as blink as she approached.

“You subdued him?” Chiyo asked.

“The manipulation has destroyed his mind and erased all his memories upon healing. Suffice it to say, he’s a newborn with powerful abilities. Now where is Kilo?”

Chiyo looked downward. “He self-destructed to injure our enemy. He said he’d be fine. Do you just expect me to forgive him?”

“Both are already dead, I suspect. So the old man, did you collect the marble and necklace?”

“You mean these?” Chiyo picked up the items on her father's remains.

“Yes, now place the marble where you want your mana core to be.” Kyrion waved his hands as a magic circle made from obsidian rose from the ground. Kyrion didn’t miss the subtle hole that opened up in the ground and swallowed the swarm creature's core whole. The planet growing more and more active by the minute.

“Chiyo placed the charm that had gained a face in the center around her neck and placed the core next to her left ear.”

“Step in the bonding circle.” Kyrion stated then sighed as he helped Ander to his feet and walked back over.

“Alright.” Chiyo stood in the center.

“Spirit of the fallen come to us and speak your mind to your descendants! I offer upon you a contract of mind, body and soul, leaving the restrictions, limitations, and requirements to you.”

Chiyo’s eyes began to glow for a long moment as tears began to flow. The conversation was private, and the terms for such a contract were meant to be. Thus Kyrion decided to see how messed up Jac’s brain was.

“Ugh. Karl, care to ask what happens to the minds of those charmed by the woman in my domain?”

“You mean the Succubus Matriarch? All she did was make every human seem like a monster, and every one of her allies either seem invisible or look human.”

“Does she still think I’m an ally?”

“Well she knows you aren’t the lich, but she’s also been reduced to a practitioner tier in terms of power and heavily restricted under the order mana in your core. Terms and conditions for survival. The lich has been reduced to a spirit core and placed in a containment box. Its death affinity magic is quite powerful. You should find someone to give it to later, as quite a few of your siblings also have that affinity.”

“You know something I don’t. But that’s fine for now as you would have told me, if you could.”

“Correct.”

“So what are you going to do with the succubus?”

“You do have an affinity for mental…”

“No.”

“Fine. You can have it become a sentient core for someone else.”

“That would be annoying…”

“What's that face for?”

“I suspect I'm getting gifts for my friends, despite not planning on doing so.”

“Well I did manage to capture the core for that time rift world. It’s now a sub dungeon. Meaning I can store things within and take it with us.”

“That's something nice that will come with me.”

“And borrows its time dilation abilities to an extent.”

“That's not so great. Don’t get me in trouble.”

“Yeah, sadly you can’t use it directly.”

“That isn’t.”

“But imagine constantly fermenting potions for gifts.”

“I’m going to need to have a talk with Billy soon.”

By the end of the contract awakening Kyrion could see that Chiyo was crying and thus decided Ander had enough rest on his shoulder.

“Oi, get up!” Kyrion slapped Ander in the ribs, imparting a bit of healing mana into him as well as transferring some wind mana into his core.”

“Owww!” Ander coughed as his mind became alert.

“Your first love is crying and you're sleeping on the job. It appears we’re done for now so you should get back.”

Ander stood on his feet and made his way to his fiance. His expression was just as sorrowful, but his eyes gave way to resolve. He’d make sure Chiyo was strong enough to survive on her own at the very least.

Kyrion walked over to Jin and healed him enough to get him to move around.

“Kyr? What happened?” Jin asked as his thoughts returned and his body felt better than ever.

“Jac’s mind has shattered. So we’re going home to refuel. I also need to check on my cousin?” Kyrion got the feeling that he was fine, though such self-destructive tendencies would need to be shelved.