CH736

Okay, I’m officially significantly less sure they aren’t just trying to kill me.

That was the thought he had while dodging to the side mere milliseconds before the attack was shot as he was forced to wonder just how often he was avoiding bad endings for himself and the others. If they were seriously attacking him and the goal wasn’t to lure him then that meant there was at least one branch of the future where it worked and possibly more. He had to assume that if killing or incapacitating him was the goal then it must have seen some path to victory, especially since he hadn’t been putting so many of his minds to random options to create more to choose from.

It was a strategy he’d seen success with before but not one he wanted to try again until he was close enough to his victory to make it count, limiting his futures all the more as he kept himself from harming his dominated allies while he did his best to make the most of the possibilities he had.

More lightning came and Pato attacked where he dodged too, creating a zone that drained the vitality of those who entered it, with Ben making sure he took the brute of the attack since he had skills that could help him deal with it and he once more carelessly fired off a hail of small stones towards them, spending far too much power for an attack they shrugged off as he ran, trying to think of enough potential options of what he might do to at least complicate their attack against him.

Myriad, one to one thousand, go!

<Four fifty-four.>

Got it.

The future split and collapsed as he ran, taking advantage of the situation and skills to put to use a topic he was an expert in but rarely got to enjoy in its standard capacity as he further deepened his connection to the other three he’d taken over to indulge in a perfect act of ritual magic, able to manage it without flaw as he cast for the others instead of relying on the slim chance they might master the impromptu timing of a technique none of them had practiced before as magics merged and blended before being let out into the world as a whole, with all of the knowledge Ben could apply to a spell he’d thought of only seconds before taking full effect.

A level one light, fire, and water magic, a level two air, a level seven corpse song and then Ben’s three awakened options as well, those were the tools he had to play with when trying to single-handedly form a ritual and he used his material manipulation as the base, building it up with the rest of the options while he did his best to tie them all into something usable.

Pato vanished the instant the spell was cast, the demon controlling him already able to see how the fight would turn out and withdrew its teleporter but it wasn’t able to save Fone as the woods came alive around him, trees bending and roots shot out from the ground below to ensnare their target in a poor replication of plant magic with the options he had on hand, empowered further beyond their lower levels with the application of what mana modifiers he could create with their varying skill levels.

At a certain point, Fone stopped trying to fight, just going still and speaking of just how sure his capture had been while Ben continued to run away. If there’d been any potential to escape then he was sure there would have been an attempt at it but once all doors were closed what was the point? It could surely also see that Ben had no intention of killing the man so that meant there’d be time to escape soon enough as they ran away.

The entire time, Ben was doing his best to make it feel like he’d just picked a direction and stuck with it but it was all to keep bringing him closer to his true targets, doing all he could to narrow the gap as he felt himself connect to another demon mind without Myriad tell him he’d missed it too late, a fact that told him what he was about to do had worked as he lightly touched it and the link to the demon controlling the one hiding in the bushes nearby, feeling it hold without informing them of his presence.

He could also feel that demon was about to jump out to attack him unlike the others he’d passed but he didn’t so much as blink, refusing to give anything away when he finally had his chance and as the world around him dropped to slow motion and the demon lunged out, he continued to examine the way it was being controlled.

When he’d examined the dead one through the lens of Azeezol’s magic he’d thought it had been controlled in a way that mirrored a few of the skills he held, bind included, and now able to look at an active example of it he could see how right he was. What enabled the control may have been an act of magic but just like his skill, it was a stretched-out piece of the demon’s soul itself linked to the other that allowed it to take over, an insidious thread making a domineering link to overpower whatever it could get for itself.

There was surely some limit to it in range or number of bodies it could manage but he didn’t have the time to test and figure that out then and there. He didn’t have days to study it to try and find some clever solution, he could only use the options he had in hand and followed one of the paths he could see in that demon’s head where he escaped and drew closer to the one controlling things from the background. He'd narrowly escaped, even if another problem took its place.

Among all of the futures he’d seen in that brief connection, many were telling him that his three companions were only going to hold him back as things were. He may have had complete control over them but in too many futures he had to either act to save them or put himself in harm's way to keep them protected, same as he’d done during Pato’s attack.

It was something he thought he’d be able to put off until later but with the way things were going, he held out one of the voidstone pieces he’d enchanted on earlier, taking Azeezol and Joois into it in the same way he’d trapped the immortal Rook in the past.

Unlike that last time, the area within the space would be both tighter but also slowed down, with how long the enchantments would keep up before decaying away being limited to a day in case it somehow got lost but with them safe he let himself be picked up by the remaining one, using Queemit’s strength while he could to give his own body a rest as they rushed on to the heart of their demonic swarm.