Psychokinetic Eyeball Pulling

Chapter 36: Unknown Lifeform

Repeated explosions rocked the air surrounding them thanks to Astrid’s [Crash] Skill. Body parts flew, dark age old viscous blood seeped from the limbs.

Wait, are they undead? Ah, who cares? They are now! Astrid chuckled as a dagger left her belt and pierced the skull of a nearby undead with a thud.

Daniel and the others were focused on the boss. Astrid knew her place within this battle, and that was dealing with the trash. Her mind connected to the rubble all along the floor as it levitated upwards and started rotating. The speed rapidly gained as the debris from all over swirled around the Wayfarers like they were sitting in the middle of a storm.

The crumbled bricks, wooden pews, and scattered glass tore into the rampaging ghouls. The ghouls staggered, but they remained relatively unharmed. It's not doing much damage. It was only impeding their movement, and at worst, it was a waste of mana. Their powerful bodies shrugged it off as they scrambled forward. Red veins were branded into their eyes like a dense–bloodied spider web.

Disconnecting her mind from the rubble, it all clattered to the floor. Instead, she relied on [Crash] and the blades at her waist.

After a while, the mana usage forced Astrid to uncork a mana potion and swallow it. With her mana replenished somewhat, she glanced over at Daniel and the others. It looked like the battle was coming to a close. Although the ghoul lord was strong, it was no match for the entire party of Wayfarers.

Leena dashed ahead of Astrid as her metallic umbrella popped open. The ghoul’s oncoming attack smashed into Leena’s pop-up shield. Astrid latched onto the monster as she sent a wave of psychic mana to push it back. Her battle-maid’s hand flashed as the umbrella was closed, then shot forward.

Astrid finally had room to breathe as the number of ghouls dwindled. With the lord almost dead, Astrid used more than half of her mana to send explosions to the boss’s skull. The clusters of matter were all targeted at the soft parts of its flesh. Throat, eyes, and temple. However, the damage was minimal despite aiming for the weak points.

It finally fell to the ground.

“So it wasn’t another lich.” Astrid said as she kept on the lookout. Nothing was going to jump out at her ever again!

“Yeah, I’m glad it wasn’t. Don’t want you stealing all our levels this time.” Rachelle was about to skip to the body when her body halted. Daniel held her up by the back of her robe.

“Lisa, Astrid, sense anything?” Daniel said as he looked into the darkness of the church.

“There're ghouls scattered around beneath the floor.” Astrid said as her Psych Domain picked up the stragglers scurrying around.

“It looks to go down quite a distance, most likely an underground tunnel system.” Lisa had her hand on the dusty floorboards.

“We’ll go down and hunt the rest of them.” Daniel said. “We’ll make this our foothold. Don’t want to disappoint the other teams with not having a place to call home.”

“If they get here in one piece.” Rachelle said as she was finally let go. She rushed over to the corpse and pried the crown from the emaciated ghoul's head. Walking back over, Astrid helplessly grabbed the crown.

You gained a rare piece of class equipment!

Warrior Class - Level 75 - Commanding Bone Crown: Crafted from the ghoul's own bones. The crown penetrates the brain, allowing the Ghoul Lord to send orders to the lesser bloods.

| 27 added constitution.

| 24 added strength.

| 20 added wisdom.

| Morale Skills have 15% increased area of effectiveness.

| Those affected by Morale Skills have their constitution increased by 10%.

After letting them know what it was, Rachelle snatched it back and stored it safely within the loot pouch tied safely to her waist.

I guess no one has a use for it? Astrid used the few moments of peace to enter her system.

You defeated a - Ghoul - level 53!

You defeated a - Ghoul - level 36!

…

Extra experience is awarded for defeating an enemy one level above!

Experience is reduced for fighting within a group!

You have levelled up!

…

Psychokinetic level 35 -> Psychokinetic level 37

Illusionist level 33 -> Illusionist level 35

Gained 20 stat points.

You now have 70 constitution.

You now have 110 wisdom.

Skill level up!

Psychic’s Power [ Stage 2 ] level 1 -> Psychic’s Power [ Stage 2 ] level 2

Psych Domain [ Stage 2 ] level 1 -> Psych Domain [ Stage 2 ] level 2

Illusionary armour level 2 -> Illusionary armour level 3

There we go. Astrid nodded in satisfaction as the group looked down a hole in the middle of the floor. Even with the added dark vision from Astrid’s stinky ear necklace, it was pitch black. Brett was the first to jump down as he embraced the shadows. Astrid followed behind the others as they jumped down one by one. Floating down, their light stones brought the darkness to life.

Rachelle held a smoldering ball of fire as it lit up the area. She moved to the side of the wall as her hand touched a long strip of dark, viscous liquid. Like fuel to a fire, it surged to life and trailed down the entire hall.

White, dead eyes looked back at them. The ghouls languidly lay within the darkness. They were like the ghouls at the bottom of the hill, it’s as if they had no energy and had to hibernate. Probably been a long time since they’ve had something to eat.

Hungry or not, she held no sympathy as her psychic mana blasted their skulls into pieces. It was as she had planted a bomb within their brains and detonated it. They continued further down the hall.

“You know, watching you has got me thinking.” Brett said.

“Wow, what a rare occurrence that is.” Rachelle joked.

“Funny… But Astrid’s powers are quite terrifying, no?” Brett continued. “How are her enemies meant to know where the explosions are coming from? And that you can just fling enemies away.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s easy.” Astrid said. “Using that explosion uses a lot of mana and if they have a high constitution or strength, I struggle.”

“Really? You use it like you’re simply throwing pebbles.”

“I guess I can use it about–” Astrid thought for a second. “Around forty-five times?”

“That’s a lot of mana.” Rachelle said. “You must have epic classes, right?”

“One Legendary, and the other Epic.”

Daniel whistled. “Damn, didn’t know we had royalty.”

“Royalty died off a long time ago.” Astrid shook her head.

“Well, doesn’t that make you the closest thing we have, then?” Losef said.

“Knew it the first time we met, little princess.” Brett nudged her arm.

“And yet one mistake and I’m dead.” Astrid peered at the matter surrounding her, making sure there wasn’t anything creeping up on them.

“Got us there, I suppose.” Brett nodded. “Anyone remember Fionn?”

“The Fionn?” Lisa raised her brow.

“Gloria’s eldest sister,” Astrid remembered. “The genius assassin, two legendary classes.”

“She died in a Bubbled City. They weren’t even able to recover her body.” Daniel trailed his finger along the dust ladened wall.

“Rumours from the Lower District are that it was betrayal–a plot to steal her Epic grade equipment.” Brett said.

Astrid placed a dagger in her hand at the ready. “The Upper District nobles say she sacrificed herself to save her party.”

“The only ones that would know the actual story are the last survivors of her team, that are still missing.” Rachelle said.

The hallway abruptly stopped, the flame trail led to a heavy wooden door. Black metal accents were pinned on its surface. Deep scratches were marred into the wood. Flimsy discoloured yellow and white fragments lay littered on the floor.

On either side of the door lay intricately carved pictures. Although, to Astrid, they just looked like squiggly lines. But those squiggly lines depicted an image of entering a human’s body through the skin. Just imagining something squirming inside her body made her skin crawl.

“An abandoned church with evil drawings. I can tick that off my list of things to see before I die.” Astrid decided not to look at them as an uncomfortable sensation tickled her mind.

“People haven’t been here for a very long time.” Rachelle brushed her fingers against the engraving.

Lisa approached with her hand on the wall. “Nothing past it, not that I can sense, anyway.”

Daniel then looked at Astrid. She shook her head.

“Alright, Rob, nice and slow. If there’s anything beyond, we’ll greet it with a storm of steel.” Daniel placed his hand on Rob’s shoulder as the door groaned open.

The metal hinges had long rusted over–with a yank–they crumbled to fragments as the door fell against Rob’s shield. Astrid latched onto the door and moved it to the side, revealing a large room cluttered with a different assortment of bottles. Many had shattered and lay scattered around on the floor. The others that were lucky to survive were filled with a thick black goo.

Lisa performed a quick scan of the room before they all walked in.

“A mad scientist’s lab?” Brett picked up the bottle.

“Do you have to touch everything?” Lisa snatched it from his hands and placed it back. “You don’t even know what’s in it.”

At the words, everyone turned to Astrid as she sighed.

Level ?? - Unknown lifeform: ???

Level ? - Dead Unknown lifeform: ???

“It’s a lifeform?” Astrid said. “No description.”

“Alright, well definitely no touching then.” Lisa warned. “That means you Brett.”

Brett was hunched over, pulling back his outstretched arm as it was about to poke a strangely coloured bottle.

“I ain’t a child, you know.” Brett crossed his arms.

“That’s up for debate.” Rachelle scoffed as her brightened eyes looked to search for anything that either shone or appeared to have worth.

Astrid moved to the centre of the room, where the main table was located. Perched up on a stand–a wide glass bottle was displayed. The cork had the same squiggly lines from outside scorched into it. Her finger moved forward. As it approached the bottle, she thought she had witness it move. Astrid dashed back as it gained everyone's attention.

“I think it moved.” Astrid said.

“Let me see.” Brett walked forward as he went to pick up the bottle.

“Don’t touch it–”

Brett picked it up, looked at it, then placed it back down. “No movement. It’s obvious even the contents within have died, after hundreds of years–even if it was poison–it has long lost its effectiveness.”

Astrid stared at the bottle as everyone continued ransacking the room for anything worthy of returning. She moved away, deciding to ignore it. She didn’t want to bring back something that might contaminate the entire ship. Wouldn't be the first time Rebirth had to go into lockdown.

Astrid moved over to the bookcase and lay against the wall. Plucking a dusty book from the shelf, she opened it up as clumped up dust fell to the floor. All the pages had eroded.

“This place is rather disappointing. Let’s get out of here.” Daniel headed for the door as they all travelled back through the tunnel system.

Just as they returned underneath the church, Astrid’s mind twitched. Blue and red matter formed above.