Chapter 179: The Apostle, Aura Bullet! The Terror of Soul Control

Caelus broke through the barrier and saw what was on the other side.

He immediately frowned seeing the sight.

Players were going about their day. But something was wrong. Everyone seemed to be following an order.

The people in the streets walked in long queues, like an assembly. Some of them had empty, lifeless looks on their faces.

And yet others walked right past them like nothing was strange. They did not spare the lifeless ones a single glance.

It looked like a town full of puppets.

Like an experimental ground.

"They are all mind-controlled," Caelus mumbled under his breath.

Just then, he heard clapping from behind him.

"Well done, Player 555. You understood the heart of my power. Very impressive. You are such a smart man. I appreciate that about you."

He turned around slowly, his expression grim, and saw the one behind it all.

Faust.

She floated in the air, dressed in almost nothing. In her hand was a chain. The other end was locked around the neck of a man who crawled through the air on all fours, like a dog. He too wore almost nothing. His eyes were empty.

Caelus’s expression hardened seeing this.

"So this is what you do," Caelus said. "You take people and make them into things like this. Is it because your parents didn’t love you when you were your young?"

Faust only smiled wider, like he had given her a compliment.

"Do not say it like that, Caelus Kross. You will make me sad," she said.

The moment Caelus heard his real name, his face stiffened.

He was right. This person was not normal.

She had seen through his real identity, even with his ender passive hiding it.

Someone like that was definitely not ordinary.

"What are you?" Caelus asked.

His dragon heart was beating fast now.

Could she be an ender?

He activated his Chaos Perception Eyes at once to see through her.

[Name: Faust]

[Title: Apostle]

[Talent: ???]

[Combat Score: Likely in Gold III]

’An Apostle... of whom?’ Caelus frowned. Nothing he saw could be trusted. What if she could fake her status window too? The hidden talent told him she could. And "Likely in Gold III" was not a normal reading. That was the biggest giveaway here.

Then Faust spoke again.

"You want to know about me so badly, Caelus Kross. That is fine. I will tell you."

"I am the messiah of the human race." She winked and spread both arms wide in the air.

In a blink, her thin clothing changed into a tight dress made for battle. Red light glowed from her hands.

"I was born to save humans from the gods and the axiom origin. And I am already one step closer. Haha." Her voice rang out across the sky as she pointed lazily at Caelus.

"Come, Caelus. You are a wonderful thing. I would hate to see you die. So I will break you, and make you mine." She licked her lips.

But Caelus did not move. He stood there, calm.

His Chaos Perception Eyes were already open, and through them, he had seen something about Faust.

He was not going to rush in. Not when the enemy was begging him to.

So Faust moved first.

Red light burst out from her body in a ring, spreading in every direction in waves.

Seeing it, Caelus moved fast. He used Ferra, formed a barrier around himself, and layered telekinesis on top of it.

But to his shock, the red light passed straight through the barrier and touched his skin like it was nothing.

A red alert flashed in his sight.

[Debuff: Soul Control has been applied.]

Caelus’s eyes went wide.

Telekinesis, the ranged barrier, Ferra. None of them had worked.

The light had swept out in every direction at once, so there had been nowhere to dodge.

And then his mind began to turn against him. His thoughts grew restless. Even temporal reset was not working on it.

Caelus gritted his teeth.

These mind enemies were always the worst to deal with. But he had survived one before. He had lived through this kind of thing. His will hardened even as the control crept deeper into his head.

Buddhist chants rose up inside his mind. The boundless light of the Buddha gathered in his palm. Before his mind could be taken whole, he slammed that palm down onto his own head.

A golden flash appeared behind him, it was a buddha statue.

With the buddha palm hitting his head, he was not hurt. The Buddha palm only struck the evil and the illusions.

The following instant, the Soul Control shattered like glass.

"Oh? Buddha’s power?" Faust looked surprised for a moment. Then she laughed again.

"As expected of you, Caelus. You did not disappoint me."

"But I am only getting started."

Coloured light shot from her hands and rushed at him.

Caelus threw up his ranged barrier and trapped the light inside it. The light fought against the walls, then died out.

But before he could breathe, Faust was already standing right beside him.

He never saw her cross the distance.

A fist drove into his chest.

[Ding! You have taken damage.]

[-50 HP]

Caelus’s eyes widened at the number.

"Do not worry, Caelus. That is just a skill that hits harder when it lands as a surprise," Faust said with a small smile.

Caelus glared at her, but his mind was already racing. He had not seen her move at all. That could only mean one thing.

She had a spatial skill!

’Fuck. How does she have all of these?’

"You have a teleport skill, don’t you?" Caelus spoke. "But it has limits. No gold rank moves through space for free. Either there is a cooldown, or you are using an Anchor."

Faust did not even flinch hearing this. This was common knowledge, after all.

Without a word, she flung two orbs of coloured light at him.

This time, Caelus would not let her catch him off guard.

He unleashed his fighting spirit. The sky cracked open above him as the great might of the Ancient Dragon God poured out. It tore through the orbs and rushed straight at Faust, who stared at it in disbelief.

Then she chuckled. A red butterfly rose from her body. It wore a small crown, and it sank into her chest.

"A fighting spirit?" Caelus’s eyes widened. He pulled his own out to meet hers.

A ring of sound rolled out from where they stood as both their powers climbed higher.

Their attacks met in the air with a heavy crash, throwing them both back. They traded blows as they flew, each strike chipping away at the other.

Below, the dog of a man, Erza, watched his mistress take damage. Anger twisted his empty face. He raised a hand and a cannon formed in the air, then he fired it at Caelus.

Caelus stared down at him with irritation. He wanted to drop something heavy on the man for that, but the range was too far. Worse, Erza was also Gold III. He could not throw just any attack at him.

Then an idea came to him. His aura surged and gathered at his fingertip.

A faint hum built in the air.

A crosshair appeared in his vision, and he locked it onto Erza using his Chaos Perception Eyes.

[You have learned the skill: Aura Bullet.]

A thin beam of light shot from his finger and punched clean through Erza’s skull.

He did all of this while still trading blows with Faust.

"How cruel, Caelus. How could you kill an innocent man like him?"

Caelus did not answer her. He had always known he might wake Aura Bullet one day. Aura skills only came to you in the middle of a real fight, and this was no different. Now that he had it, he used the new crosshair to land his hits on Faust with far better aim.

He struck again and again, Ruyi growing larger each time to crush down on her. She gave back just as much. Both of them were bleeding power, and neither would fall.

Caelus thought about using Chaos Dragon Body.

But that was far too risky. Tomorrow was the day the domain merged with the Middle Expanse. If he burned that card here, he would walk into the merge without his strongest weapon. And Faust was already this strong. He could not even imagine what the people of the Middle Expanse would bring, with all their updates and advantages.

No. Not yet.

So there was only one other way.

His aura was running low. Once it ran dry, he would be in real trouble. His CA gauge and mind power had dropped too. The CA gauge sat at exactly sixty percent.

He would have to gamble.

Volcra cost sixty percent of his mana pool. But if he landed it, it would erase her. Of that he had no doubt.

He began to gather it.

Then Faust smiled, and something dark bled out of her.

"Black Nova Corrosion," she said softly.

In that instant, every player below dropped to the ground, their eyes hollow. Light tore down from the sky and gathered into a black, ruinous mass in her hands. Then it broke open.

The blast swallowed her, Caelus, and the entire kingdom. The reach of it was monstrous.

And yet, only one person took damage.

Caelus felt several forces lock onto him at once.

A wave of pure pressure slammed through him.

His HP and MP dropped like a stone, and a debuff notice flashed up.

[HP: 15]

[Ding! You have been hit with a debuff: Torturous Corrosion.]

[Ding! Temporal reset has been activated.]

[Debuff: Torturous Corrosion has been cleared.]

"You damned woman," Caelus spat.

For the moment it had lasted, Torturous Corrosion had sent endless pain drilling through every part of him. His thoughts were in pieces, still trying to climb back from the shock of it.

But he forced his hand to grip Ruyi and shouted, "Get bigger."

Ruyi shot out, growing as it went. Faust simply laughed and blinked away with a teleport.

"My teleport cooldown is already up, Caelus."

"Haha. Do not worry. I will not kill you. Once your HP hits zero, I will do something to bring you back." Faust laughed as she drifted closer, her eyes promising death all the same.

One strike was all she needed now. He needed many.

Caelus stared at her, jaw tight.

Things were looking bad.

Faust came on with a wild laugh. She could taste the win. She had earned it through dirty tricks, yes, but it still felt good to beat someone as strong as her.

Then her head buzzed.

Her fists were already flying toward Caelus through the air.

But she realized something was wrong.

Something... Something terrible had just been set loose.

A tyrannical roar split through the sky.

Dragonic energy erupted from Caelus. His body changed before her eyes. His pupils narrowed into slits, the Chaos Perception Eyes burning at full power. A divine halo flared behind him, and the chaos ring spun out beside it, ringing with the deep, eerie note of a trumpet that sounded like it could end the world.

Faust’s eyes went wide as her gaze met his.

The moment it did, Caelus only smiled politely.

"You are not the only one who can cheat," he said, and slowly raised his hand.

A terrible weight of telekinesis clamped down on Faust.

A moment ago they had been even. Now they were not even close.

The pressure dragged her down. She coughed up blood as she was forced toward the ground, unable to stop herself.

She still had not caught up to what was happening.

"A dragon... a dragon with the power of chaos... it cannot be," she breathed.

Caelus stood above her, dragon energy coiling around his whole body. In his left hand, Volcra bubbled with ruin. In his right, Ruyi.

"You put up a good fight. But in the end, I am the one still standing," he said, and threw Volcra down almost lazily. "I carry the blessing of Sun Wukong. Losing here would be a shame."

A ring of glowing runes lit up across the entire kingdom and pulled in tight around Faust. Before she could move a muscle, Volcra went off.

BOOOOOM!

The blast tore through every last layer of her defense and began eating away at her body.

[Ding! The domain is closing.]

The notice flashed the instant Volcra detonated.

Caelus did not waste a breath. He shot toward the cloud of smoke where Faust had been and immediately used extraction on her.