Psychokinetic Eyeball Pulling

Chapter 215: Overload: Courage 5/7

The attack smashed against her strengthened Mind Barrier, and although it resisted against the strike, the damage was already dealt.

Blood ejected out of Astrid’s mouth as it splashed against the translucent barrier in front of her. The pain coursing through her insides, despite her having already altered the pain resistance in her mind, told her that the damage was severe.

She didn’t have to check to know that her internal organs were scrambled. The only thing keeping her alive was the thousands of points in her Constitution stat at the moment. And of course, that meant that she now had low Intelligence.

Her barrier was weakened, and it wouldn’t be able to resist another attack. Not even from one of the lower levelled spiders.

Splattered in red, Astrid gazed up at the golden attacker with a scowl.

It was a huge spider unlike the vanguard that she had defeated before. With large legs pointed in a lance-like tip, and golden armour finished with gilded horns atop its head, its entire body was a weapon.

Even the aura that radiated off the beast was enough to cause Astrid to take in a hot, humid breath.

It wasn’t an enemy that she could defeat.

She knew it well. It held an aura that was even greater than the primal Avemoth, as crazy as that sounded. Astrid had to retreat. With that sole thought coursing through her mind like a warning system blaring.

Injecting herself with a potent stimulant, she counted the rest of them. Three mana, two health, and one stamina stimulant were left.

From the dozens she had before, her supply was dwindling. Ignoring the thought of having to ask for more, Astrid turned, and flew.

But the golden monster chased after her. And it was faster than the flying Sinwen by an order of magnitude.

Catching up to her in a haze of movement, it pierced her body with a giant spiked leg.

However, it tore through the air. Astrid had already blinked away.

The encroaching danger pervaded her body in an instant. One wrong move and she was dead.

Astrid, realising that the situation was perilous, created a blanket of illusions. A thick fog billowed out from Astrid’s palms, and sifted through the jungle.

She wasn’t done there. Creating hundreds of voidbent needles in a second, she scattered them all around her. Stuck in trees, hovering above the tree line, or hidden under the leaves of the jungle floor.

Astrid blinked away from another lance strike from the golden arachnid, then willed the needles to move. Most of them were fired straight for the little spiders, but seeing the intelligence shine within the golden monster's eyes, Astrid had to resort to something else.

Roguery.

Time wasn’t kind to her, but she had to do something. If not, the monster would catch up to her in seconds, and skewer her to a tree.

Creating a void bullet in her palm, she shot down to the floor, then placed her other hand against the wet soil.

However, by the time she had done that, the gilded spider was already upon her. It was all to plan. The spider skewered her clone, but this time, it was incredibly realistic. From the blood, to her pained expression.

Well, the pained expression was real, as Asrtid could feel her clones' pain, but her plan had worked. The spider, although for only a split second, was confused. It hadn't killed the right target.

Astrid didn’t know how it knew. Was her expression not real enough, or perhaps there was something missing to the realism of her clone that she wasn’t aware of?

Whatever the reason was, it would have to wait till later.

Releasing the hold of her void bullet, it tore through the air, leaving a trail of purple in its wake. The golden spider braced for impact. Lowering its head, its shoulders–if it even had shoulders–closed, making it so that the golden armour across its front acted like a massive shield.

The purple bullet slammed into its carapace, and did absolutely nothing. There wasn’t even a scratch on the surface of its armour, but thankfully, that wasn’t Astrid’s main attack.

One hand still on the jungle soil, Astrid exploded her mana usage. Using more than half in an instant, a massive purple lance shot out from underneath the earth; right where the golden monster was hunched up at.

The purple lance covered in primal flames slammed into the underside of the spider. Purplish blood with golden specs spilled into the earth.

Astrid forced her celebration. The spider was angry.

Holes opened up in the surface of the gilded carapace, revealing exquisite golden eyes that were made of the purest gold. Then mana surged and one hole lit up with a startling light.

Not wanting to be in the line of fire, Astrid was about to dodge, but she noticed something. It was using its eyes as some sort of laser. If it wasn’t that, then it was undoubtedly an attack of some sort.

Grinning, Astrid used another large portion of her mana, and created a connection with one of its three eyes: the one one its own in the middle of its skull.

There was an intense reaction from the spider. It tried to hide away, but it was already too late. One of Astrid’s greatest strengths was tearing out eyes from her enemies skull, and when she wanted them, she got them.

Screaming, Astrid pulled as hard as she could. Just before the spider could turn, or thrash its limbs to counteract her pulling, Astrid yanked the eye from its socket.

Blood spurted as Astrid pulled the golden eye over to her.

Dominating Sovereigns Eye has extracted the Skill - Golden Brilliance - From the Gilded Demon Spider.

Golden Brilliance: Increases magic damage by 100%. Increases defence from Armour by 150%.

Would you like to merge with - Golden Brilliance Y/N?

“Yes!” Astrid shouted.

It instantly replaced the eye of Avemoth and its primal fire.

The armour of the assault arachnid donned on Astrid became incomparably tougher, and it also became thicker as well. At least double in size, making the armour quite unwieldy, and heavy. But at the moment, Astrid didn’t have time to care.

Something was happening in the golden spider's direction, and she didn’t like it one bit.

If the monster's eyes meant that it was its bloodline, then that meant the spider in front of her was far more dangerous than she thought. And she already thought it was plenty dangerous.

From the bloodied hole of the demon spider's eye socket, activity stirred. From a dim spark, to crackling like that of violent lightning.

The damned monster was learning how to attack without channelling through its eye.

Astrid spat. She blinked to the side, not knowing when the attack would be released. But she found out in the next instant. The moment Astrid had moved, the spark of light shot at her.

It pierced through her leg and slammed into the ground below her. Everything it touched was burned, her flesh included.

The siering pain felt like numerous ants eating away at her flesh. And with the spider once again using the same attack, Astrid felt dread at the enemy.

Not only did it have impenetrable armour, but it also had an extremely powerful attack. It was exactly what Astrid wanted, and now she was faced with her dreams.

Astrid no longer had any desire to fight. She had to focus on survival. Creating numerous weakened clones, she spread her eyes into the surroundings, and blinked repeatedly. She felt her mana container vanish as a droning pain drilled into her brain.

Disregarding the pain entirely, Astrid blinked straight out of the jungle in mere moments. The castle was in view, but she couldn’t hesitate here.

Blinking once more a few more metres ahead, from where she once stood, a golden beam of light struck the earth. The rocks that had been there for many years exploded into fragments.

Once more.

Astrid grit her teeth, and blinked a final time as she made it to where the village was. Then, she used whatever strength was left in her legs to ungracefully leap to the side.

Her body struck the ground and just as she landed, the outside wall of the village, and the building she had decided to use for cover were ripped apart by the golden light.

Stray pieces of rubble indeed on her body, almost covering her completely, but she was otherwise unharmed. Because of the obstructions, the powerful laser hadn’t made contact with her.

Picking up her body, she flew until she was behind the main wall of the castle. Behind it lay the army of Darian’s warriors, and the civilians belonging to the village.

Once again, the light slammed into the wall, but this time only a chunk was burned out of it. It seemed that the wall was reinforced, or the brick simply held durable qualities. Whatever it was, Astrid took in a gulping breath of humid air.

Shit, that was close.

Astrid groaned, and gulped down one of her Rare health potions. Her insides turned itchy. Unbearably so as she had to resist the urge to open up to her slides. Instead, she altered the temptation to scratch it in her mind, and finally, she could relax.

Or that’s what she hoped for, but the scuttling of thousands of legs, and the repeated bombardment of the angry golden spider, made her very aware that she couldn't rest just yet.

She had to regain her strength.

The ranged combatants of Darian’s army were already busy at work. Hundreds of them fired arrows that blotted the skies, but there were simply too many spiders. Each arrow only managed to kill one; hardly enough to put a dent in the thousands of spiders that approached.

It wouldn’t be long before they were surrounded on all sides, and spindled into a ball of cobwebs.

Astrid refused to die here. Especially from spiders! Anything but!

Courage 78/100%

Drinking one of her last mana potions, Astrid quickly recovered around half of her mana and floated up to the battlement on the wall.

Astrid was about to Crash the matter in a wide arc, but there was a better method. Swapping out the eye that empowered her clone, she replaced it with Avemoth’s own. For her plan of attack, she needed fire.

Then, she controlled the matter to spurt out like a fountain from her palm. But instead of water, it was primal fire. Like a supernatural enhanced flamethrower, Astri showered the spiders in an apocalyptic wildfire.

All she could hear was wretched squeaking, and the crackled, and pops that followed.

Once she had created a field of fire and cut off any path of escape for the army of spiders, Darian’s archers sent volley after volley of arrows.

Just as Astrid thought the situation was turning better, the golden arachnid had other ideas as the mana in its surroundings was like a boiling storm.

Peeking over the wall, Astrid noticed that more holes had opened up on the demon spiders back. Then, whatever was within the holes pointed straight for Astrid.

Dozens of shining lights of gold fired at Astrid, each one a weakened version of its main attack.

“Oh c’mon! Aren’t you running out of mana?!”

Astrid screamed out to the battlefield. Not only was it attacking non-stop, it was also wounded. Despite that, it wasn’t any slower, and it didn’t seem like the savage wound in its stomach even affected it in the slightest.

Heartbeat striking against her chest, Astrid readied herself for the incoming barrage.