The nice thing about Telepathy was that it spoke using the mind, so I could get the message across even if my target wasn’t intelligent enough to understand words. If I could threaten them into backing off, that’d be better than picking a fight in the air.
But in response, the white orb leading the pack began to glow a bright, brilliant red. The next moment, a thick ray of heat shot toward me from its center. I had to veer to the side to avoid it.
That looked like Heat Beam…the same skill the giant sand centipede used on us. Despite the lingering trauma from my first time dealing with that powerful beam, the kesaran pasarans’ stats were far below mine. I could dodge their attacks with plenty of room to spare, and even if I got hit, I’d be able to recover quickly.
‹Th-that was scary…› Treant muttered. It clung to my back with as many branches as could reach.
The only issue here was that if we got into a full-blown fight, I was going to have to do some pretty extreme maneuvers. Sorry, Treant. Just brace yourself and get used to it.
The two kesaran pasarans trailing behind the first began to glow red as well. Two more Heat Beams seared their way toward me.
I could see them coming with plenty of time, but dodging three wide-range attacks at once was a tall order. If I stopped moving for even a second, they could cut me off and close in from all sides. I flew past the white spheres in a wide arc. The three Heat Beams crossed over each other as they chased after me, but despite the skill’s impressive range, they were still too slow to hit me. There was no way those floating orbs would catch me; at my agility level, I could lose them in seconds.
‹Guys! This looks like a good way to farm some levels. I’ll fly past ’em, and you can whittle them down with your attack skills.›
“Okay! Let’s do it!”
‹L-L-Leave it to us! I’ll get to my next evolution with this battle! I have to!› Treant still seemed nervous about the altitude, but even so, it stood tall and readied itself to fight.
Okay. Let’s take a peek at these monsters’ stats before I swoop past them again. Just in case.
Species: Kesaran Pasaran
Status: Mad God
Lv: 90/130
HP: 2228/2228
MP: 1354/1354
Attack: 1402
Defense: 1408
Magic: 1495
Agility: 1499
Rank: A+
Special Skills:
Automatic HP Recovery: Lv 7
Automatic MP Recovery: Lv 7
Fly: Lv 9
Mad God: Lv —
Resistance Skills:
Physical Resistance: Lv 6
Magic Resistance: Lv 6
Poison Resistance: Lv 8
Instant Death Resistance: Lv 4
Normal Skills:
Regenerate: Lv 7
Heat Beam: Lv 8
Yawn: Lv 6
Double Poison: Lv 7
Clay: Lv 8
Hi-Rest: Lv 8
Title Skills:
Former Beast King’s Servant: Lv —
Symbol of Good Luck: Lv —
Final Evolution: Lv —
Status-wise, they seemed like fairly easy opponents. Their stats were almost perfectly balanced all across the board, and they didn’t specialize in anything—which meant that against a higher-level monster like me, they were severely lacking in both speed and attack power. After all the levels I’d gained in the fight against Lilyxila, these guys would be a cinch. I got enough practice dealing with long-range attacks during that fight anyway. Lilyxila’s Aparajita form had tormented me enough for a lifetime. These weaker attacks were nothing.
However, they had a status condition I’d never seen before. Mad God, huh? It seemed like an unusual one, similar to the Collapsing God condition the slime got when it evolved into Ruin.
Maybe this status condition was incurable too? The three kesaran pasarans all had the same condition. I should take a closer look at this.
Special Skill “Mad God.” Those who continue to breathe in the toxic air of Ngai Forest will be consumed by a madness from which they will never awaken. They will be haunted by nightmares every moment until their death. Those affected lose both their identity and intelligence, becoming little more than simple beasts who only seek out foreign enemies who do not possess this condition. This skill will never disappear. Ever.
Whoa…this is a crazy skill. Is this place called Ngai Forest? The Collapsing God skill that eventually killed its host was awful, but this isn’t any better. Never-ending nightmares that make them attack other monsters… That’s a tough break.
The implications of the Mad God skill gave me a strong sense of foreboding. This world—Ngai Forest—seemed like the Divine Voice’s miniature garden, where it sent monsters to fight against the vicious monsters already turned mad from the forest’s fumes.
They also had a Title Skill that didn’t make sense to me: Former Beast King’s Servant. Beelzebub, the Beast King of this generation, was already dead. Besides, I’d never heard about Beelzebub having weird puffballs as servants… Maybe it meant they served the Beast King of a previous generation?
By nature, evolutionary limits for monsters without Sacred Skills were quite strict. Most monsters reached their Final Evolution at around rank B+, and no monsters should be able to reach rank A+ naturally. The Divine Voice must have found a way to bring a large number of monsters under the influence of Sacred Skill holders to push their evolutionary limits past their max. Maybe it’d been regularly sending others to Ngai Forest like it did with me…and then the toxic air turned them into mindless tools for its own plans.
Damn it! It’s just toying with us however it pleases…!
I didn’t know what my time limit was for escaping this place before the forest turned us all into the Divine Voice’s pawns, but this was just one more reason for us to get out of here as fast as we could. If we didn’t, we’d be stuck here forever, forced to mindlessly attack whoever showed up until we met our ends.
Maybe this place had originally been the Divine Voice’s dumping ground for monsters with Sacred Skills who’d outlived their usefulness? But if that was the Divine Voice’s whole plan, there’d be no reason for it to release a bunch of Spirit Servant monsters for me to deal with when I got back.
The mysterious spire towered in the distance. Either I hunted down the maddened inhabitants of Ngai Forest to get stronger and find a way to get back somehow, or I’d be infected with the Mad God condition and end up just another hunk of fertilizer for this creepy forest. Either way, the Divine Voice got what it wanted. Its goal was to flatten me.