Should’ve known that he wouldn’t get destroyed so easily. But for him to be that substance that was clinging to me? Quite unexpected.

Also quite unexpected was the fact that I didn’t notice his presence before. And to be honest, I wasn’t feeling it even now either.

What was that substance?

Before I even managed to come to terms with the whole ordeal, the people surrounding me finally made up their mind and started shooting. I guess they were really only being stopped by knowing what I had on my back.

As I was thinking that, the projectiles managed to finally reach.

They were as painful as I was expecting.

Just as predicted: it wasn’t as bad as when I was hit by an actual good mage. Small enough for me to endure it without much of a hassle, but large enough to actually do damage. Not like that mattered much, I could just repair myself in an instant…

That’s what I wanted to say at least.

The truth was, I actually had some problems with that.

Not with enduring, no. It was the healing I had trouble with.

I was… too slow.

Or rather, something else was faster than me.

The moment a piece of me was chipped by a bullet, I felt a certain slime fill in the gap and merge with me.

I don’t know if that’s what they planned or just was an idea that came in a spur of a moment, but that was definitely working. I intended to just watch them waste their magic or ammo, or whatever that was, on me until Mike finally would do whatever he was planning on, but in this circumstance it didn't seem like a viable idea.

I probably should retaliate.

I mean, I wasn’t that worried about that stupid janitor taking over my body; I was pretty certain of my own abilities. I already had more than once endured and survived a similar situation.

But, better safe than sorry.

I raised my hand and intended to toss a spell at the mass of people.

Should I trap them with earth? Or just go with a more lethal approach?

I made up my mind and was about to release my magic, but…

I could not.

That surprised me.

I never expected to be ever blocked from casting a spell. I never even experienced something similar before.

Did one of them have some kind of artifact or something that canceled my magic?

What am I talking about, there’s nothing like that. Even technology that I thought would be capable of doing something similar had already proved that was useless in this scenario.

So, what was it?

The answer was simple and was right now stuck to my back. And now even more.

-Hurry up! I don’t know how long I can keep him from attacking!

Yeah. It was the stupid janitor-slime.

Of course he would. Why the hell was the MIRE so persistent?

-Increase firepower!

Oh yeah they did.

The moment someone gave that order I could feel that my body was not just getting cracked and chipped, now it was like whole chunks of me were falling off.

It wasn’t helping that I couldn’t move… At least then I could counterattack…

I don’t know what exactly they did, but the damage that they were dishing out had increased. Do those weapons have some kind of switch that you can just flip? Why not keep it on constantly then?!

The answer came immediately after. In the form of a falling body.

It seemed like the weapons were draining a bit too much from the users. Sounds about right. Good for me. If I had full control over my body, I could’ve just waited them out and they’d knock themselves out. But that was not something I wanted to plan on right now, not with the slime-janitor invading my body.

At least it was just the body. I had a feeling that it was soon going to change, so I decided to stop acting like I was cornered.

One look at the group was enough.

A lightning bolt emerged right from my body and zapped both the slime and the group in front of me. I didn’t reach all of them, but I definitely reached some of them.

It’s not like I was blocked from using magic completely. They just blocked my movement. If I was to focus myself, I could easily cast my spells without movement or speaking. Guess they weren’t aware of that.

The current I created was not strong enough to do major damage, but I definitely stunned at least five of them, making them drop their weapons. Some weapons even started smoking suddenly…

Were those vulnerable to electricity?

-AH!

-I told you! HURRY UP!

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But, it didn’t matter what he was screaming. I still had an upper hand.

I could just send another lightning. This time, towards the back, to the other side where the previous hit didn’t reach, to sew even more distraught.

It definitely worked.

The shooting was now very chaotic and it was only getting worse.

Some of the people who were zapped managed to stand up and pick up their weapons and I was about to send another lightning towards them, but that was unnecessary. It seemed that I had managed to break their weapons.

The moment one of them pulled the trigger, the weapon in their hand exploded. It was so sudden, I never expected for it to work that well. Or at all, really. Was their work really that shoddy?

But, despite the undeniable chaos that the sudden explosion had caused, the tenacity of the group was not shaken. The ones that were still armed were constantly shooting, not letting me have a single moment of respite.

That’s the army for you. Or at least I think that’s what they were.

Definitely better than just some band of random mercenaries.

-Don’t stop, I almost have him!

Huh? I don’t know if he was just delusional or just tried to keep their morale high, but that was definitely not the case.

While sure, I could tell that more and more of his “slime” was merging with me, besides that, I couldn’t tell the difference. I mean, yes, I had trouble moving, but that was happening since the start. So, the situation didn’t change at all since the beginning, besides some of their people being knocked out.

That didn’t mean that the situation was good. The fact that he was trying to interfere with my body still was worrying.

But, first things first: I had to deal with the immediate danger of the people surrounding me.

How much more time do I have to buy?

I probably should slow down their progress…

I focused on the ground under my feet and a moment later a wall of earth had emerged in front of me.

Yeah, that was not going to work.

I intended to block the line of sight for them and maybe shield myself from the gunfire, but the earth here was too soft. The wall that I intended to spread around me and surround me from all directions almost immediately vanished. Or rather it was torn to shreds by the gunfire.

I had to do it again, this time focusing a bit more on the durability part…

Didn’t help much. Even with rock, it barely stood firm for a couple of seconds before it got pummeled down into dust by the gunfire.

I probably could reinforce it more, maybe use the actual Origin Crystal to shield myself, but I didn’t.

Instead, I focused more on the offensive.

I started sending more and more lightning towards my enemies, but this time they were expecting it.

Sure, the blasts reached them, but so what?

The ones that I downed before were smart enough not to pick up their weapons and instead focused on defense of the rest of the group.

When they noticed my attack, they immediately followed up by sending a blast of mana towards the incoming lightning.

It was a weird counterattack: I never expected for anyone to try and attack me with pure mana. I mean, usually that would just mean strengthening my spell instead.

This time, that was a bit different.

Sure their mana managed to give my spell a bit more of a kick, but that’s what they wanted. To detonate the spell before it reached them.

Quite smart, I have to say. For the first time, the enemy in front of me wasn’t stupid. And on top of that, they weren’t just trying to sacrifice their mana for pointless attacks, like, I don’t know, blowing themselves up.

I sort of liked it.

But, that didn’t mean that I was planning on letting that go.

Of course, I still had plenty of mana and ideas on how to disrupt them.

And the second one was similar to what I did before.

After sending my lightning towards them and seeing it being disrupted, I also started channeling my magic towards the ground.

Instead of making walls, this time I focused on weakening the soil they were stepping on.

Wasn’t that hard, since the earth here was soft, and with just a moment, I could see that some of them started sinking in, like they were stepping in a bog.

That worked quite well at first.

Some of them started losing their balance, dropping their weapons in the process.

The weapons were almost instantly swallowed, too.

That was my main plan. I wanted to make them unable to move and disarm them.

But, they were not going to just wait for me and take it.

The moment they realized that I started messing with the terrain, they started doing so themselves.

Sure, I did catch some of them, but only a few. The rest managed to pour their own magic into the soil, creating spaces safe for them to tread.

If I was to put my mind to it, I probably would be able to overpower them without much of a problem, but I stopped myself short. I already had the advantage.

Sure, they were quite clever and quick thinking, but that didn’t mean much if they had less mana.

I expected for them to have some precautions in place, just like my good old friend janitor, but apparently I was overestimating them

Or underestimating the price of the crystal.

I thought that they would just use some of that stone to replenish their reserves. With that and me being a bit tired, they would have a pretty good chance at defeating me and taking as a prisoner.

But that did not happen.

The men simply didn’t have any magical stone with them.

Or, as I heard later, at all.

Despite the fact that they were strong and apparently having support of some higher-ups, they were still unable to procure the items for themselves.

But that brought to me another question.

Who exactly was the janitor?

It was clear that he was no regular person. Definitely not just some janitor.

First off, his salary.

If not directly from the government, or something along those lines, being able to procure that kind of item would definitely kill more than one wallet.

And if it was really provided to him as some kind of tool…

Who was he working with? MIRE?

Possible. Who knows how far those fingers manage to stretch through the domain.

-I’d request for you to calm down - I said. - If you try fighting like that, you will definitely catch those people into something dangerous. And you don’t want that.

The further into the sentence, the more agitated I was.

I honestly can’t tell you why, but the situation was irking me the wrong way.

I am sure that I don’t have to add that I immediately knew something was off in my own head.

But, I didn’t act on it.

-I don’t care about what some creature tells me to do!

-That creature is more considerate than you think…

I guess there was no getting away from it.

Let’s just destroy them all and be done with it…

-Stop!

Great…

What did HE want now?