The gray fog already existed in the depth of Angor’s soul, so it did not repel Angor’s attempt. Still, the thick, dense, and significant unknown substance caused Angor to worry a little.
He tried to control the fog.
No matter how many times he tried though, the fog remained there unchanged, like a viscous puddle, slowly shifting about.
The only thing Angor could do was to make the fog spread or return to its original spot.
Parasite Queen was still staring at him from her flower, with her terrible face covered in worm-like creatures. Angor shivered a little. If her fans outside looked at her current state… many people would probably have their sanity broken down right on the spot.
Parasite Queen controlled her pollens to surround Angor’s soul tightly.
She could not sense Angor’s emotion, but she could still see Angor’s soul. She saw the soul trying to take control of some fog albeit a little clumsy. Still, the fog began to grow thicker now. She did not know what would happen if she did not break the fog’s defense in time.
More pollens crashed against Angor’s soul like bullets.
Angor kept moving parts of the fog around his soul. He could not do much else for now, but keeping the pollens away was not really difficult.
Any pollen that connected with the fog instantly stopped moving. It was as if they were no longer “alive”.
These green pollens were spores of a rare magic plant called Green Velvet. Parasite Queen found them during a destiny she encountered before. She could control any creature who was polluted by the spores of Green Velvet. But unlike common parasites, these spores had magical properties that allowed them to pollute someone’s soul that existed in the depth of void.
This was how Parasite Queen found her way into Brute Cavern — by taking the body of an apprentice she found.
The spores she used were easy to deal with. An easy spell like Dust Removal could quickly get rid of them from the atmosphere. However, once they entered someone’s body, it would be really difficult to remove them again unless their victim knew something to defend his or her soul.
Level-3 apprentices or those beyond usually knew such techniques. Angor, however, as a level-1 apprentice, never learned anything like that. At least this was what Parasite Queen believed.
What was happening now really shocked her. Not only did Angor possessed something to defend his soul, but he also did a perfect job fighting back against her spores.
More importantly… the spores caught in the gray fog were no longer under her control. She could still sense those spores, but there was a terrible might around the spores that she did not dare to manipulate them anymore.
“What defense is this? Seventh hell! Did Sunders put something on this brat to protect him?”
Her emotion was clearly sensed by Angor.
Angor was wondering the same question. Just like Parasite Queen, he had no idea what the strange fog was. Did Sunders really do this? Angor could not recall anything Sunders did to him that might be related to it. Also, the sense of familiarity coming from the fog had nothing to do with Sunders.
The gray fog kept applying itself around Angor’s soul, and it did not look like the fog would exhaust any time soon.
Parasite Queen was worried about it.
If the fog completely covered Angor soul, what could she do?
She had to get rid of his soul before that happened!
Parasite Queen made up her mind to give it a hard push.
Angor sensed her idea as well. In truth, he was unsure of how long he could last.
Just now, he thought about the same thing; he could simply spread the fog around his soul and repel the pollens even though he could not control the fog for real.
That was why he kept releasing the fog without holding back.
Angor did not know how much fog existed in the depth of his soul. He simply decided to keep releasing it and only stopping when he saw a decrease.
But something happened too fast. There was only a brief, unnoticeable moment before the fog changed from “sufficient” to the other end.
Angor felt as if something inside of him was suddenly removed.
He quickly tried to stop releasing the fog. And it was too late—he could no longer prevent the fog from escaping!
As the remaining fog left its original spot, Angor writhed in pain. He felt there was something like a blood-sucking worm which just emptied his soul; one who came back to devour what was left of him.
He now regretted his decision for fumbling over his own soul without knowing anything about it at all.
The consequence of his foolish move was probably a suicide instead of getting killed by Parasite Queen.
Parasite Queen did not stay idle during Angor’s action. When she saw the gray fog coming from Angor’s soul, she thought Angor was going to make himself an armor which fully protected himself, and that her spores could no longer do anything to him.
She moved.
From behind her spores, she ran toward Angor’s soul herself while stepping on the velvet strings created by the pollens.
If she would take a moment to observe, she would notice that Angor’s soul was growing weaker, so she could simply wait for a victory when Angor’s soul exhausted itself. Too bad though, she never learned much about souls and completely missed her chance.
When Parasite Queen reached Angor’s soul, Angor was too weak to sense her further emotions.
At this moment, Angor’s soul was just an unmoving prey, waiting to be killed.
Parasite Queen, on the other hand, only needed to be careful not to get caught in the mysterious fog.
She avoided the area of the fog and slowly moved behind Angor.
His soul was the least protected here, which meant she had the best chance!
To make sure, Parasite Queen did not use her spores this time. She controlled the main body of her skill—the Green Velvet—to dive into the soul.
Before making her move though, Parasite Queen noticed a small wound on Angor’s back.
It was a small cut located on his bladebone which looked like something caused by a woman’s long nail.
“Even god favors me!” Parasite Queen was afraid that Angor might have something else to protect his soul, so she was trying to look for an opening to go in. Now the wound was a perfect spot.
She would invade Angor’s soul right here!
Parasite Queen made up her mind and ordered a vine of her Green Velvet to pierce itself into the small cut on Angor’s back.
…
Outside, the arena was still protected by a magic array because the screen still had not announced the end of the fight.
Both Baron Milk and Parasite Queen had lost their consciousness on the ground. Baron Milk was hugging the floor face-down in a strange posture, while Parasite Queen lay in a crater caused by Toby’s kick.
The audience had been yelling from their seats for five minutes, but no one gave them an explanation yet.
“They’re still in it? Angor’s body is fully occupied by the spores of Green Velvet now. Why isn’t he awake?” Melantha watched the arena with worry in her eyes. She was a formal wizard, but she had not learned how to observe someone’s soul.
Neither had Baroque. Unlike Melantha though, he was not worried in the least. He did not believe a fresh apprentice who earned his victories by using his pet and alchemy weapon had anything to prevent a soul invasion.
“Did something go wrong?” Melantha got a bad feeling.
She would never allow Bouy to control Angor as a host as she feared that this would trigger Sunders’ rage. However, it already happened. As another member of Floating Mech City, she somewhat hoped Bouy to succeed. This kid called Angor did give her a fine impression, but it was not enough to change her personal standing.
However, there was someone among the audience who could tell the state of souls.
On one of the VIP seats, a hooded man suddenly frowned.
“How? The soul of my precious is getting weaker! Bitch! Is that stinky cunt behind this? No one shall touch my precious star! He’s mine! Only mine!”
He bolted from his seat and prepared to rush the stage to claim the soul of his “precious star”.
But he stopped midway.
“Oh? My precious soul is returning… and getting stronger?” His eyes glimmered with joy. “Good. Good! Keep growing, my precious! Ahh… I can’t wait for the day when I shall finally conquer such a beautiful soul!”
His face was twisting with both happiness and evil.
An eerie and fearful laugh was then heard from him.
Those who were close enough to hear him all felt a terrible chill crawling on their backs.
On the other side of the audience stand, Dave was beginning to worry as well. He complained to Angor for hurting his “princess” just a moment ago, but when he saw Angor staying motionless on the ground for such a long time, he could not help worrying about Angor’s safety.
Parasite Queen was only a dream which he would never reach, while Angor was his best opportunity for him to realize his ambitions in the future. Dave clearly knew which one was more important to him.
The clock ticked, but nothing had changed on the stage.
Someone already began to throw stuff at the workers. Juice bottles, half-eaten fruits, snack bags… various junks rained down.
The arena was protected by a powerful magic array, but the workers around the arena were not!
“End it already! Can’t you see my queen has lost so much blood??”
“Should anything happen to Parasite Queen, you’re the murderers!”
The workers tried to report the situation to their superiors again and again, but they only received the same response: Result unclear, the match should continue.
Just as the audience was preparing for a riot, someone suddenly pointed to the stage and yelled loudly, “Hey look! Baron Milk’s hand moved!”
More people quickly followed the direction of his finger and they noticed that the speaker was telling the truth.
When most people shifted their attention to Baron Milk, they all saw him pushing against the ground, struggling to get up.
“Baron Milk came back to life!”
“What do you mean? You thought he’s dead?”
“I do hope so! But he wasn’t! Damn it!”