I carried Gobta's body to the central plaza, where all of the other bodies were. There wasn't any point in rushing, I could tell, deep in my soul. As I made it to the plaza, I walked through crowds of Tempest residents, kobolds, dragonewts, hobgoblins, even humans. The one thing that they had in common was the fact that their eyes were all downcast.
As I finally stepped through the final layer of people, I sensed my demon lord seed absorb Kyoya's soul like a sponge and water, as he died.
I'd only realized that my seed could do that without their death via Big Bro's Gluttony after I'd turned that one idiot to ash and learned that I could analyze his Berserker unique skill straight from his soul.
Interestingly enough, Kyoya's soul contained vastly more energy than the other guy's. His unique skill, Ravager, was an entire order of magnitude stronger.
Maybe his dying terror had forced it to evolve? Too bad the evolved skill was meant for fighting people, not poison. Scary effective, though. It let him instantly rend anything he touched via spatial tearing.
Immediately finishing my analysis of it, I managed to assimilate its dregs into a new extra skill called Dominate.
As I placed Gobta on the ground beside Shion, Rigurd finally built up the courage to walk up to me. "Benimaru is investigating the barrier as we speak… The death toll is… 75."
I sighed. "Tell him to detain the responsible party. No killing. They're not going to be able to bring the barriers down, anyway."
In my head, my mind was practically screaming at me. I felt like I needed to do something, but I didn't know what. Even if I wiped Farmus off the map, literally, it wouldn't bring Shion and Gobta back. In fact, that sort of mass murder would be a blatant smear on their legacy.
Wait… bring them back…?
Latching on to that single thought, I analyzed my new Dominate skill again. Once, twice, three times, as Rigurd walked away to carry my orders out.
"It might work." I whispered. "It just… might work!" I felt like whooping with joy. The chances were low. Incredibly low, stupidly low, but it was hope. And I knew that when he came here, Big Bro would come to the same conclusion.
Immediately, I got to work.
I used Curiosity to fuse Dominate and Chaos Warrior. Doing so evolved Chaos Warrior into another skill called Champion's Dominion. Champion's Dominion allowed me to designate a space and exert a certain amount of influence inside it. In exchange for the boost to my dominion-type powers, my Thought Acceleration was dropped from 100,000 times to 10,000 times, but that was fine.
Immediately, I utilized my new skill to create a third barrier surrounding the city. This barrier was inside the first two. Its entire function was to apply the effects of my skill onto the city proper, negating all of the effects of the other two barriers and rejecting anything that I don't want crossing through it.
With the Dominion Barrier over the city, the souls of the dead, trapped in by the other barriers (hopefully) would have a slightly harder time dispersing into the air, and it'd be impossible for them to cross this particular barrier and scatter to the wind.
It also meant that I had a small amount of control over the laws of physics inside the barrier. There was nothing stopping me from applying the second part of my plan, preserving the bodies.
Champion's Dominion couldn't overwrite natural laws, only exert a bit of influence. The longer Big Bro and I took to resurrect our friends, the less likely the process would work. And with a chance so low that I couldn't even ballpark it, I needed to do everything I could to pad the odds.
So, I summoned spirits. I summoned, actually more created, 75 non-attributed spirits, directly from my own power.
I created the spirits to be as strong as possible, so they came out as mid-level, stronger than Izzy's original Salamander form, placing each of them somewhere around an A-minus in terms of strength. It cost me a ton of energy to create them all, but as far as I cared, it was more than worth it. As soon as they formed, I gave them my order.
"Preserve the bodies and prepare them for the return of their souls. In the meantime, utilize the bodies to release magicules into the air, in order to aid the preservation of those souls." Immediately, the spirits dove into the bodies, which all instantly healed, before moving into the exact same kneeling posture in unison. As one, their auras began filling the air, the residual magicules inside the bodies playing a large part in the magnitude of the release, Shion's body at the forefront.
"Get Shuna. Tell her to gather all humans in the townhouse and place a barrier over it before the magicules inside the city get too dense. When Big Bro gets back, he'll explain everything." I called out to one of the hobgoblin elders, who immediately raced off to carry out my instructions.
Meanwhile, it was finally time for me to move on. I had work to do, revenge to carry out, and fears to face.
For Shion and Gobta.
…
(3rd POV)
"Calm yourself, Folgen." Razen advised the nervous knight captain in front of him.
"I know. But you didn't see it, Razen. That thing… it defied logic. I felt completely helpless in front of it." Folgen admitted, white-knuckling the sword on his hip.
"From your description, that was likely one of the leaders. One of those slimes. According to our intelligence, the female one is a skilled elementalist, so the Holy Field would not have affected her much. However, we are prepared." Razen explained. He had taken Folgen's account of the horrifying power display that had killed the powerful Shogo with a grain of salt. While he knew that Shogo's ego was vastly oversized, Razen genuinely believed that not even that witch Hinata could defeat the powerful otherworlder with such ease. It must have been some kind of trick.
And as such, it wouldn't work against Razen.
He also had a concrete reason to believe that Folgen's enemy was exaggerated. Namely, she'd allowed him to escape. In Razen's eyes, he believed that the reason for that was that she didn't believe that she could defeat Folgen, under the effects of the Holy Field. So, instead she used some sort of intimidation skill.
But even if she was as strong as Folgen described, Razen believed that the two of them could take her down. Seeing Shogo die in front of him allowed Folgen to copy the Berserker skill with his own unique skill, and Razen had nuclear magic readied, just in case.
If she was going to leave Tempest, then she would likely go through the western road first, and that meant that she'd need to attack the camp where Razen and Folgen were stationed. And, she'd be weakened from breaking out of the Holy Field, if doing so was even possible.
It was a foolproof plan.
One that would be rendered completely useless against Risa's overwhelming power.