The Colossi Sergeant was overwhelmed by Eva's superior skill and might, forcing his female companion who had been assisting the troops to come to his aid.
｢Name: Colossi Tactician – Sergeant Rank monster
Level: 40
HP: 72,000/72,000｣
She had slightly less health and was not meant for direct combat. Hers was a mage class, but more as a backline supporter. However, her use in this battle was limited as there were too many enemies, and she knew too little AOEs.
Before this Colossi Tactician could reinforce the Sergeant, she got blocked by Zaine and Roma. The gypsy had no need to manually control her Witch Slaves as they all had extreme intelligence, so she could act as back up for Zaine who was the lowest level out of all of them.
As for the various Specialists on the colossi's side, they were being mowed down slowly but steadily. With Hikari providing the cannon fodder with endless HP, it was simply a battle of attrition, one the colossi were losing significantly.
Zaine smirked as she changed into her true form. Her nails became like stilettos, her skin took on a slightly purple hue, her eyes became bright purple and her purple horns emerged.
There was also a heart-shaped tail, her bat-like wings, and her increased s.e.x.u.a.l allure. However, that had nothing to do with Zaine's plan of attack.
Mind Blast!
The Colossi Tactician screamed and clutched her head, falling to the ground in agony. She writhed like someone had injected lava into her veins, and her now red eyes began to leak blood.
Just like with Charm, Zaine's version of Mind Blast was vastly different from Draco's. His version stunned all enemies within a certain range for a short duration, with a somewhat long cooldown.
Zaine's on the other hand, was a single-target skill that stunned an enemy and dealt mental damage. It had a longer duration and a shorter cooldown. Each one had its own pros and cons.
The succubus rushed at the writhing Tactician and stabbed her nails into her neck. However, Zaine frowned the very next moment as her nails were unable to really dig in. It felt like she was scraping granite and the actual damage was only light.
The Colossi Tactician sensed her life being in danger and forcibly gathered her senses, trying to fight back. Even with her eyes being bloodshot and her mind feeling sluggish, she did not allow herself to meet her end without a fight.
This desperation became the fuel for her counter attack. Sensing the resistance of her prey, Zaine leaped back and tsked. She admired her scarily sharp nails and shook her head.
"I'll have to ask Draco to make me a suitable weapon later. I prefer melee combat to ranged, but it seems like I'll have to resort to that for now." Zaine muttered under her breath.
As such, she flapped her bat-like wings and appeared beside Roma, who was currently in the middle of casting. Roma waved her hand, releasing a wave of green energy that swept all the enemies off their feet.
It dealt no damage but was a crowd control Mystic Art. It allowed the beasts to pounce on their enemies with malicious intent, tearing at the Colossi's vulnerable areas. This dealt minuscule damage, but it was enough for the Witch Slaves to capitalize on it.
They broke into the fray and pounced on the fallen colossi, plunging their teeth or fingers into their target's bodies. What chilled the heart of the other colossi was the fact that the life force of their targeted brethren was being absorbed!
The colossi under the Witch Slaves were shriveling up quickly while the Witch Slaves were glossing up significantly. It was a horrible sight that made the Witch Slaves seem far more monstrous than they actually were.
This was just one of the reasons why the Witch Slaves were such a broken ability.
On top of this, Zaine began her mental attacks. She still had Telesthesia, Psychometry, and Telekinesis powers as passive skills.
｢Telekinesis – Passive skill
Effect: You are able to move objects with your mind at will. The speed, strength, and weight of the objects you can move depends on your Intelligence as well as your mental stamina.｣
｢Psychometry – Passive skill
Effect: You are able to perceive the emotions of others through touch, and can absorb it as nourishment.｣
｢Telesthesia – Passive skill
Effect: You are able to cast your mind outside your body and extend it to greater distances depending on your Intelligence and your mental stamina. This skill strengthens all other mental skills and provides unique effects.｣
Zaine had already learned that absorbing negative emotions from others replenished her mental stamina and strengthened its base effect albeit very, very slightly.
Her Telesthesia made her special among her Devilkin family because it was a power that boosted all other psychic/mental abilities, causing extremely interesting mutations/adjustments to how they were used.
In essence, Telesthesia was a weaker version of the Void of Perfection, and when coupled with Telekinesis and Psychometry, it caused the latter two to display much stronger effects.
For example, Zaine could only absorb negative emotions through touch, which was why she had touched Eva's forehead when she had her mental breakdown during the Divine Auction.
However, Draco had prompted Zaine to combine her Telesthesia with it, and showed her how he did so. As such, by the time the Player Auction came around, Zaine could already sense negative emotions remotely and absorb a little.
She wasn't like Draco who could sense negative emotions from afar and toy with them at ease, her range and absorption were far, far weaker. However, it was a start.
Zaine's eyes glowed and a blue outline surrounded her body.
"Eva, please throw out any projectiles you have." Zaine asked through the Voice Chat of the party.
"Sure." Eva replied.
She then leaped back and tossed out 20 throwing knives towards other colossi, her small weapons striking eyes, mouths, and other weak points at an extreme speed.
Her throwing technique was truly horrifying due it its accuracy and power making it appear as if she shot out bullets in the form of these projectiles.
Zaine made them rip through the colossi they had been plunged into, tearing them to shreds in under a minute.
After that, she converged the knives with her mind and made them form a blade tornado. Like a meat grinder, they rapidly cut any colossi they encountered into pieces, terrifying the others.
Roma simply pulled Worldly Energy for another attack and sent a green arrow plunging to the back of the Colossi Tactician, who was slowly regaining her wits. After having the mystic arrow penetrate her, she spat blood and fell to her knees.
-45,000!
The combination of Roma, Zaine, Hikari, and Eva was too deadly. The formidable colossi that would even give elite players at the same level a tough time were a piece of cake for these four women who were far below them.
Zaine especially suffered from the heaviest stat suppression, but it didn't affect her telekinesis, as that was not something that could be easily suppressed with how indirectly she was using it.
For the time being, she had given up on melee combat as she could barely do anything meaningful there unless her level caught up and the suppression was reduced.
Mental skills/techniques were extremely rare and could not be learned unless one had a specific racial affiliation or a class above Rare. They were also much more taxing than physical skills of the same caliber.
However, their utility was great… usually. Of course, some mental skills/techniques were a miss, but the rest were extremely powerful. Zaine's combination was especially potent with Telesthesia helping immensely.
After another minute passed, all the basic colossi were dead and the Tactician was felled next. With a roar of pain and regret, the Sergeant of the encampment also met his demise at Eva's hands, with her blade piercing through his throat up to his cranium.
The Witch Slaves obediently collected the loot while Eva gathered the other women and checked their statuses. They had each earned 453% experience because the enemies were a higher level than each of them.
Zaine brought the most experience, not through her kills, but her low-level. The total amount had been 1,812%, and Eva had set the exp share to even. There was no need to rush for kills or get last hits since there was no competition between them.
Roma went to level 21, 87% from level 17, 34%, giving her 20 stat points.
Zaine went to level 5, 53% from level 1, 0%, giving her 20 stat points as well.
Eva went to level 34, 53% from level 30, 0%, giving her 12 stat points.
Hikari went to level 31, 25% from level 26, 72%, giving her 25 stat points.
Usually when NPCs leveled up, their stats would be automatically allocated by the system. After all, there was no way Roma would have invested points into Strength - making it her strongest stat - when she was a pure magic caster.
Thankfully, Eva could now allocate their stats for them. She put Roma's 20 points into Intelligence, bringing it to 40 points. She put Zaine's 20 points into Intelligence as well, despite knowing that Zaine preferred melee.
This brought Zaine's intelligence to 30 points. She then placed Hikari's 25 points into Spirit. Hikari did not need anything else with her stats that were even higher than Draco's who had a Divine class, except Spirit.
Spirit would allow her to better control Worldly Energy, since Hikari did not use mana. As such, there was no need for conversion, just pure manipulation.
With something like White Light Healing, it had two weaknesses. The first was that amount of Worldly Energy in an area. If she repeatedly cast the skill, the concentration of it would plummet until it became unusable, and she would either have to change areas or wait until the concentration rose again.
For scale, the Worldly Energy concentration in a Divine Empire was capped at 70%. A strong Kingdom had 35% and a settlement had 1%. A Field Zone varied depending on its nature, but the average was not more than 5%.
It was only the monstrous Vita City-State that had 100% concentration. In Vita, Hikari could use White Light Healing almost endlessly, but here, she would be capped after a few hundred times.
The second weakness of White Light Healing and her other skills was her own limit. This was a mixture of her Rank and her ability to manipulate Worldly Energy. As a Supreme Rank White Dragoness, she definitely could pull torrents upon torrents of it.
However, she would eventually tire out and reach a limit. This was decided by her Spirit stat. It also decided how much she could use for a skill at a time.
For example, should 100 people need healing at once, she could only heal 30 of them at the same time before getting exhausted and having to take a break before she could continue.
If it was infrequent and she healed targets one at a time though, there was no problem.
Eva pondered and made the decision to spend some money to buy stat re-allocation potions when they got back. She wanted to change the stats for these three from the ground up to better suit their fighting styles before they got used to what had been decided for them.
For now though, Eva put 10 of her own stat points into Dexterity, bringing it to 50 points and hitting the first threshold. The remaining two were placed into Strength bringing it to 12 points.
At the first threshold, Eva truly felt like her speed had increased greatly, but it was just an illusion. While the effect of the stat had increased, it wasn't by the amount she felt it should. Then again, she already knew this.
As Eva led the women through the Plains of the Colossus towards their next target, she inspected Hikari's new skills that the Dragoness had learned after hitting level 30.
｢Congratulations on learning the skill:
White Light Blessing.｣
｢White Light Blessing – Active skill
Effect: Infuse a target with the holy light of purity, granting them strength and power. All their stats are doubled, and so is their defense and damage.
Cooldown: None
Autocast: Off｣