It was true, Captain Taluya was the final remaining member of her team. This meant if she wasn’t careful enough, she could easily end up like her team members – captured!

In fact, she was really the last person in the forest related to the 6 company mercenary coalition, so it was almost impossible for Mr. Abrams NOT to search for her. Then there was the problematic issue with reality: she wasn’t close enough to the edge of the Forest! In fact, she was certain that her present location was fairly close to the North – Western forest’s edge, but such a distance was still not enough to escape from this mysterious monster of a hunter’s clutches, as he effortlessly closed in on her!

She could feel it, everywhere she turned, no matter how far her swift and trained legs took her, his gaze always remained fixated onto her location, without even the slightest hint of a change in pressure. ‘Distance’ clearly wasn’t the issue, as the magician’s aura never strengthened or weakened. It was as if he was merely toying with her. Allowing her to get her hopes up, to reach the edge of the forest, but never taking her out of his sight. No matter where she went, or how hard she struggled, her actions were like a set of previously predicted tactics on a chess board – the team seven captain’s actions and moves felt strangely included already in Mr. Abrams’s grand strategy. As if, by making her run around helplessly, and filling her mind with a sense of anxiety, powerlessness and dread; this cruel hunter was finding a newly discovered sense of enjoyment. This may very well be torture in her eyes, but to him? It might as well have been her punishment. She should never, have stepped foot into this forest.

Yet even so! This woman would not give up so easily. Since there was virtually zero chances of her escaping from here in tact, she could only resort to her ‘trump card’. It was truly a final, desperate action, performed only when she was backed into a corner and there was no chance of her safely returning to her home of mercenaries. This was a technique that would let her grant others a final opportunity to hear what she has to say. It effectively guarantees her ability to share with others her ‘last words’ in a sense, but there is a price to pay. First and foremost; this technique removes a portion of her soul from her body, and transfers her consciousness to it. She can then, for only 20 minutes time, choose to telepathically communicate with people, share her energy with them for a bit, or even possess them for the remainder of her short duration as a spirit. In exchange, her body would be rendered unconscious and her soul brought to a severely weakened state for an entire day, each. This specially groomed power of hers, is the very reason Taluya was chosen to be captain of team 7.

*VWISH!*

Mr. Abrams: “(Phew! All of these scare tactics sure are energy and time consuming. From creating that fake blood on team 4’s ‘removed’ arms, to this ‘hunting game’.)

Haah. Okay, that’s far enough. I gave you time to mull over your negative actions, today. I sincerely hope when you next wake up, you and your fellow mercenaries will consider reforma-”

*Plop*

Mr.Abrams: “…”

Mr. Abrams stares at the soul - less body as it mercilessly collapses to the forest floor.

Mr. Abrams: “…(Did I take it too far? Did I scare her into having a heart attack?

…

She… She wouldn’t have committed suicide over this, right…?

…No, no. That would be unreasonable. I’m only capturing them all, nothing more. Sure, THEY don’t know that, but there’s no way a hero would kill if they can help it. Besides, all I’ve been doing is putting everybody to sleep and for those strange few weirdos with magic artifacts that prevent sleep, I simply knocked them all out. Their auras can’t hide the truth from me like their bodies can. I can easily tell what state their bodies are in. And this woman, she’s definitely… mmm? Wait a moment, she isn’t dead and nor has this woman fainted, either. Her soul is fluctuating strangely, dimming as the seconds pass. Is this… soul magic?)”

Dammit…! I’ll have to use soul magic in conjunction with ‘Remote Viewing’ in order to capture her separated portion of soul and seal it back into the body before--

.

.

.

fuck. They’re already panicking. It seems like she already revealed the truth about what happened in the forest. Guess I’ll have to act fast before their coalition gets any funny ideas about trying to turn tail and fle-”

*BEEP*

Mr. Abrams: “…(Another fucking text? Who could be SO bored with themselves that they have to constantly bother me while I’m busy?? Especially at this hour?!”

Fed up with the consecutive beeps, Mr. Abrams begins taking out his phone while simultaneously surveying the Coalition of mercenaries’ current actions. They began to panic and fluster the moment Taluya’s ghostly form arrived and touched the cranium of the Black mercenaries’ leader, Darz. His hands moved along with his strong body gestures. Finally, after a momentary word with the other 5 leaders, they all took action, moving quickly and anxiously. It would seem whatever the girl’s apparition form told them, caused them all to desire nothing more than leaving the campus grounds.

Of course, Mr. Abrams had an idea of what it could be.

As his hand fished the phone out from its hidden pocket and turned attempted to turn it on, failed to remember that the ‘beeps’ signified it was, in fact, already on. Thus, he had to ‘turn it on’ again. He never took his gaze away from those criminals all the while, though. There was NO chance he was going to let anyone escape this time around. Once he was done successfully inputting his touch screen’s security, Houdini checked his phone’s text messages to see who the fool that didn’t know the meaning of ‘sleep’ was.

Of course, it was his brand new ‘chat buddy’ Zero.

Text #1: “Pfff, as if I would use such a nasty method on my subordinates. He did it himself. Either that, or One lied to you. I would never explode my subordinate’s head… yuck.”

Mr. Abrams: “This…? Ah, when I received this text, I recall I was questioning someone whether they also had an explosive in their brain, like One claimed. Is this guy claiming it has nothing to do with him?”

Text #2: “Hey, your students are in danger. Not the ones hidden inside Dorm building #3. The ones hidden with the nurses. A secret team is about to break in. Most likely the lady that hired my subordinate. What are you going to do?”

Mr. Abrams: “What?!”

Instead of reading further, he nervously dropped his remote viewing target in favor of another. His spiritual gaze checking on the stadium where Dome was supposed to stationed.

Sure enough, his gaze took sight of the lone man coated entirely in gold while fighting off the enemies that outnumbered him. Occasionally, they would activate electricity or corrosive acid powers and strike him with it in either beam or applied-touch form, but he shrugged off such attacks like they were nothing. The REAL problem, lies with their numbers – there were just way too many of them!

If he decides to ignore them, such enemies can kill the kids easily by splitting their forces with some keeping him occupied! Actually, this was the main reason Mr. Abrams was so worried. He scanned further in, intending to check each and every room for strangers...

and saw nothing. Finally, his mind was a little more at ease. The nurses seemed to have finished rise’s poison removal and were busy sewing Noel up. Since their work had not yet ended, Mr. Abrams had to move quickly! But before that, he chose to quickly read Zero’s last text. Somehow, some way, this man knew everything that was currently happening at school. He might be trying to help, or he might be directly involved. Either way, information is usually better than a lack-there-of.

Text #3: “Fine, ignore my advice. You’ll have to make a decision right now, though. Are you gonna let the coalition of mercenaries that replaced my subordinate, One, escape? Or focus on capturing them to prevent a potential danger from occurring in the future, at the cost of your precious students? Although I can already guess what your answer will be. Especially since that ref of yours is fighting a team of 50 on his own, and the Coalition of mercenaries have set up a barrier against magic and psychic related energy. They WERE always cautious of you, after all.

But I’m confident you can break it with some effort. Regardless, do entertain me, Hero. Hehe.”

Mr. Abrams: “…’Hehe’ my ass…!

…

.

.

.

Haah. It’s true, I can break that barrier with some effort, but I’ll give the credit to security instead. After I finish calling them out, I’ll clean up the scrubs bothering Dome. Finally, the night is coming to a close.”

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