Chapter 768: Army Of Puppets
“So that’s how you do it…” I mused at the Off-Worlder.
He frowned at me, “Is this not what you are after at all?”
“No? I didn’t even know such a thing existed before you pointed it out. Are you telling me there’s even more of it in the world?”
He narrowed his eyes at me, “I would assume so, since you have one yourself, don’t you?”
“No I don’t? What even gave you the idea that I had one?”
“How else did you suddenly power yourself up?! With all my puppets combined together, my strength goes beyond a thousand!! Even if you buff yourself, you wouldn’t be able to hit a thousand in strength just by that!!”
Hmm… So that many buffs bump me up by more than twice my strength, good to know.
I decided not to tell him about my Shadow Guards and nodded at him, “So what’s your deal then? Why are you doing this and, more importantly, why the hell were you speaking so weirdly before?”
“Why do I have to tell you anything?”
This bastard…
I lowered myself into a combat stance, “You know… I can always just beat that answer out of you, right? You already know that I am stronger than you are.”
The Off-Worlder smirked, “You only managed to catch me off guard. Now that I know what you are capable of, it’s a different matter altogether.”
“What makes you think that I even showed you all that I’m capable of?”
“It doesn’t matter because if I can’t deal with you in pure strength alone, I can do this!”
He raised his arms into the air, causing several circles of light to appear in the area in front of him.
I contemplated attacking him while that was happening but then figures started appearing inside those circles, revealing them to be people who he had possessed with the mask.
I quickly used my [Screened] on the mask itself.
[Mask of Envious Greed – A mask created by the Bangle of Envious Greed that would allow wearer’s power to be drawn by the bearer of the bangle and allows their body to be possessed by the bearer. If killed, their body will return to the bangle and can be resummoned. If the mask breaks, the wearer will be free from the bangle’s control.]
Oh~ So they can’t actually die while they are wearing it. That’s very, very convenient… Hehehe…
Soon enough, about a few hundred people had appeared in front of him, forming a small army of possessed puppets that were ready to do his bidding.
I noted that some of them seemed to be armed while others were unarmed. In fact, there were a few of them who were even naked.
He was looking at me with an arrogant smirk, “What now, bitch? You think you can handle this many people all by yourself? Just so you know, I still have all their power even though I called them out of my bracelet!”
“Ok… Are you ready to fight yet? Because I’m ready to beat you up right now.”
His eyebrow twitched in annoyance before he pointed a finger at me, prompting his army to start charging towards me.
Alright, let’s see how well I do against a small army first.
I held my Light Sword up before charging at the small army, meeting them head on.
The first guy tried to lunge at me and I deftly sidestepped him to swim my sword at his neck, cutting through his neck with my sword which would have normally lopped his head off.
However, the only thing that happened was the guy transforming into what I had initially mistaken for a Shadow Summon before it disappeared.
So it looked like he didn’t change into a Shadow Summon when I smashed that guy into the ground back then, it was simply just a function of the artefact.
I took a step back to avoid another puppet’s sword slash that would have cut off my own neck, only for me to step in again to thrust my blade into their chest, returning them to their shadow form before leaping up into the air.
Two puppets that had tried to grab me ended up smashing into each other as I avoided them before I landed on top of their heads, kicking them into the ground and smashing their necks.
The two of them started turning into shadow even as I stepped off of them to avoid another two that tried to stab their spears at me.
I threw my sword into the air before grabbing both of their spears to pull them closer to me, the sharp ends of their spears going under my armpits harmlessly.
Using their spears as leverage, I pushed off to leap into the air, spinning around to smash my tail against their faces and sending them flying away.
I then snatched my sword out of the air as it dropped back down to slash at another attacker coming from behind me in the head, dissolving them into shadow.
Landing on my feet, I dashed forward again, slashing my sword to the left and right quickly and cutting down a swath of the puppets as I ran.
Two of them tried to block my way and I leapt into the air to deliver a kick to both of their faces, using them as a springboard to leap over the crowd towards the Off-Worlder.
He realised I was trying to get close to him and immediately sent even more of his puppets to block my way.
I raised my palm and shot out a [Fire Blast], burning a large number of them in front of me back into their shadow forms.
I stabbed my sword forward and impaled the blade on another puppet that tried to grab at me from the front, clearing the way forward.
When I looked up, I found the Off-Worlder smirking at me, “What did I say about things being different?”
Before I could point out how I was easily cutting down his little army, circles of light appeared in front of him on the ground and all the puppets I had defeated earlier reappeared, all of them looking none the worse for wear.
Wait… There’s no cooldown on when he can summon them again? Seriously? That’s so broken!
And he gets to buff himself using them as a battery too! Isn’t that more broken than my Shadow Guards?!
Oh wait, my Shadow Guards are all as strong as I am while his puppets don’t actually get stronger if he gets stronger. So my Shadow Guards are still pretty broken… My bad.
He was still smirking at me, “What do you think now? I can just keep calling them out so aren’t you going to make use of yours as well? At this rate, you’re going to be overwhelmed, you know?”
He still thinks I have the same artefact as he does huh? But why does he want me to call them out? Wouldn’t that eliminate his advantage over me? Especially when he thinks my ‘puppets’ are the ones bolstering my stre– Ohhh… He intends to steal my puppets from me and claim them for himself.
I’m not sure how he intends to do that but I guess he must have a plan if he was trying to goad me into doing it.
I wonder if Shadow Guards could be possessed by that artefact of his? Should I take a risk?
A few of the puppets lunged towards me and I tried to make it look like I was forced to retreat, cutting down a few of them that got a little too close.
But now, they had me surrounded and were moving to box me in from all directions.
I already intended to call out my Shadow Guards eventually to show him the disparity between us but if he had some plans in place to steal my ‘puppets’ away from me to weaken me… I guess I should take caution in case it also works on my Shadow Guards.
I called out Eins to summon her from my shadow, but I made sure to equip her with an additional hooded cloak that hides her face alongside with her maid uniform before I did so.
The moment she appeared, she immediately struck down a trio of puppets that had been trying to attack me from behind.
The two of us then started thinning out the horde, both of us working together in perfect synchronisation with Eins covering me while I struck down the puppets around us.
Just as I was preparing to cast another spell at the horde, I realised that stupid Off-Worlder had suddenly appeared in front of Eins to point his palm towards her face.
“By my power of envy! I steal your companion and claim them as my own! Subjugate, Bangle of Envious Greed!”
I froze and turned to look at the scene… Where absolutely nothing happened.
Err… What was that supposed to do, bro?
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