CH556

In Ben’s eyes, there was plenty of good about the world so long as one ignored the evercoming threat of impending doom. With so many different races coming together to build a planet and society, the richness of food and art was something to love, but what was always going to be most apparent when stepping through a new gate was going to be the architecture, with the one they’d chosen not disappointing.

Unlike the more angular buildings he would see on Earth, the ones of the land he’d walked into were all semi-spheres, rounded buildings sticking out of the ground without worrying about efficiently using the city’s space and all of them painted in a rainbow of colours, making the place seem bright and fun.

Sure, it was a bit clashing to look at, he didn’t know if he could have lived there himself, but it was different and seemed like it would be exciting to visit, with the unique blue trees spotted around adding to that feeling.

Yep, this would definitely have made for a good first place.

“If not for the fact that the city was being attacked!”

It was only a minute after the two had walked through that a sound of screams had gone up as the residents made a mad dash towards them, trying to escape through the gate as a terror came from the skies.

Twenty demons, all of them flying and looking ready to attack, with the first of them swooping down to dig teeth and claws into any terrified victim they could, only to be stopped in an instant by Thera’s power, her magic ripping a stone from the ground and propelling it fast enough to turn what had been its head into a fine mist.

“Thera, can you draw the rest in?” Ben asked her as he propelled smaller metal bullets with his own magic. “We don’t want them splitting and I want to try something.”

“Okay!”

With them all in her sight, she reached out with her dark magic to get their attention in the way that came most naturally, charming her mana and making all demonic eyes lock on her as their target was selected.

Under the effect of her power they moved as one, rushing toward them both as she prepared another spell while waiting for Ben to do whatever it was he intended, with his own goal already going against the point of their vacation. He wanted to test something.

The second that the closest was within five meters of him, he reached out with deep connection and exposed it to the full force of his mind.

It was something he’d been meaning to try but had never managed to get around to ever since he awakened the skill, but the moment he did there was an instantaneous effect. The second his mind touched that of the demon’s before him, it shattered, killing the beast and leaving it to crash to the ground as he kept it up for the next and the one after with the same result, only changing with the fifth that came close enough to feel his effects, that demon able to handle the weight of his thoughts.

So it’s not a certain thing I can kill stuff like this then I guess. Still, looks like it does pretty damn well. I’ll just have to- ack.

Pain assaulted him all at once as the demon thrashed around in his range, his body feeling on fire and the pain flaring all of the more as he shot out the stone around him to kill everything close enough.

“Thera, can you handle the rest?”

Something in his voice must have given away his state and that his desire to test anything was finished, in an instant the road exploded up, impaling the rest of the demons before they could make another move before her focus shifted entirely to him.

“What happened?”

“Not sure but everything hurts. Like, a lot.”

There wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t feel sore and he clutched at himself, trying to suppress the sudden and intense feeling of pain while Thera grabbed him to apply her spells, looking at him with her mana examination to try and spot whatever had caused it, only to come up blank.

“I’m not seeing any sort of injury and I’m not feeling any life or dark mana doing anything to you, maybe death then? Have you lost any vitality?”

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“Just a sec,” He pulled out his card, aiming to check just that but received a far greater shock with what he saw. His vitality had gone down along with his mana, that was certain, but it wasn’t just marking that he’d lost some of his total volume. No, both attributes were showing he’d lost from the amount his body could hold at all, with both dropping by two percent of the totals he’d worked so hard to gain.

“Hey Myriad, I need some answers here!” Ben called out, both in mind and voice to get his god’s attention, with the cube speaking up only seconds later.

<Infinite hells. Ben, you just started your vacation, what could be- You ran into demons. On day one. You’re actually beginning to force me to have to re-evaluate if luck really does exist as a driving force in this reality.>

“Not the point here man, everything hurts and it looks like some of my attributes just dropped.”

<What? By how much?>

“Two percent for both vitality and mana.”