The adult behind Orion fumed with an extreme, hateful expression. "Just as I said in the past, outsiders should never be welcomed! They only bring pain and destruction without understanding our struggles." He raised his hand, which was holding a hoe, and bellowed, "Let's kill them all with our hands! And take revenge for our elders! Even if I die, I will die knowing that I brought justice to our village!"
"Yeah!!!"
"Me too!"
"Count me in."
The rest of the villagers started raising their arms while screaming. Some were carrying hoes, some just broken wooden sticks, and so on.
Orion gently pushed his sister away and took another step forward while raising his torch as high as he could and roared, "You... You devils, I will personally kill you all with my hand and burn you with this torch!"
Lyria's face was pale and similarly aggrieved as Livy's.
For once, she really wanted to slaughter hundreds of ignorant villagers with her own hands!
No matter how powerful she had become, no matter how capable she had become, she had never thought there would come a day when she would personally want to kill over a hundred mortals without hesitation.
Eric sighed. He was least surprised, as this illusion no longer had much effect on him—he had already realized what had happened to these villagers.
He grinned and activated his Flame Burst Rune on his sword to its maximum.
"Oh yeah? I want to see how you're going to do that, little Orion."
After saying this, he hurled his sword straight at Orion with great power and speed.
Without any surprise, Orion was stabbed right through his chest, and the sword dug into the ground behind him.
Right after that, the Fire Rune: Flame Burst burst out and burned Orion along with everyone in the surroundings with high flames, which were far more destructive than the Fireball that Eric had been struck by long ago from the dark elf siblings.
Mila, who was beside Orion, also—without any surprise—was burnt to ashes in the blink of an eye, including the children, as well as the adult man with the hoe, who had been yelling about justice and whatnot.
Lyria and Livy turned to Eric with wide eyes and colorless faces.
They, too, had wanted to kill them, but to kill a child of barely ten years old along with his sister and the children behind them without hesitation...
They didn't blame Eric, but were just too stunned at the suddenness of it, and so they couldn't help but stare at him in shock.
Eric shrugged and pointed at the large number of burning and screaming humans, speaking calmly—though there was helplessness in his tone.
"They are all dead... long ago! All we see is just an illusion. Wake up! They are all ghosts and skeletons!"
Lyria and Livy's heads whipped toward the crowd, then their eyes slowly widened.
Something inside their minds seemed to snap, and suddenly, the illusion they were in evaporated. Now, all they saw was not a human crowd, but a bunch of rotting skeletons carrying broken, rotting wooden sticks or torches.
Everything they had seen previously was just their own hallucination. The villagers had always been skeletons and souls from the beginning!
Lyria and Livy's faces turned ashen.
Out of nowhere, their recent memories started flooding into their minds with vivid images.
Their recent activity—since the time they met Orion over a hill, then went toward his village, the villagers, Mila, and the children they had spent time playing with—had always been just some rotting dead corpses!
There had never been a single living human in that village!
For the first time, they felt deep horror rising within them.
Among them, Livy was far more shaken. She recalled how she had been playing and jumping around with ghostly children while laughing with them.
Eric wouldn't blame Lyria and Livy for having such an intense reaction. He was fine with it, as he was used to experiencing similar things.
He also understood that this was probably a unique ability of the Elder Stage—or perhaps all stages of Soulweaver—to preserve their "food" for a longer duration. Their species wouldn't normally slaughter large numbers of people all together, as their "food" would disappear before they could digest it. It was similar to how humans don't slaughter their cattle or plants all at once, as those would decay and become inedible.
To prevent these already-dead people's souls from disappearing, some sort of ability or method had been used—an ability that influenced everyone into hallucinating, making them believe everything was normal, while the souls completed the illusion perfectly. After all, normally, most ghosts—or rather, souls—never truly realize, or refuse to acknowledge, that they had already lost their physical bodies and were considered "dead."
This ability probably wouldn't work against a Master Rank's Spiritual Sense, though Eric wasn't certain how it worked or its limitations.
Eric snapped his fingers loudly enough to wake Lyria and Livy from their nightmarish experience. He then calmly ordered, "Ly, send the escaping Soulweaver toward me."
Lyria didn't say a word and disappeared. She used her Whirlwind Sprint and arrived in front of the escaping leader of the Soulweavers.
Moira had just passed through the crowd and entered the passage, but before she could go far, Lyria appeared in front of her out of nowhere and palmed her abdomen.
It wasn't a killing move—rather, Lyria pushed Moira away with her Absolute Gravity—and so Moira was flung back through the air toward the center of the cave.
Eric 'blinked' above Moira and pulled his hand back to use his Telepathic Slap to punch her.
Eric, Lyria, or Livy didn't really need to use their physical arms to use most of their abilities, but they still did it subconsciously—otherwise, they'd feel weird.
"It's time for you to disappear as well." Eric grinned.
He also wouldn't blame the Soulweavers for what they had done. It was for their survival, after all. Whether they were the ones who had slaughtered the entire Whisperwood Village or not didn't matter—he wasn't going to spout justice nonsense for any group's sake, including humans.
Just as Eric appeared above Moira, her hollow eyes blazed with rage and hatred. She screeched, "Since I cannot escape, I will drag you all with me to hell!"
"Essence Destruction!"
"Oh crap." Eric felt goosebumps rising across his skin. His Telepathic Slap punch still connected, and Moira was slammed into the cave floor—but it was too late, as she had already compacted all her mana into a single point and blown herself up.
All Eric could do was rapidly blink far away.
Luckily, both Livy and Lyria were already far from the incoming explosion.
BOOM!
A massive detonation took place within the cave. It was so powerful that the floor caved in, and the blast shot straight up, hitting the cave roof as well.
The entire mountain started shaking violently.
After being bullied from the inside out for the last hour or so, the mountain could no longer hold back. Boulders and rocks began falling from high above.
The huge mountain was collapsing!
Eric, Lyria, and Livy's faces paled.
Eric's head snapped toward Lyria, who was standing far away.
The "humans" in between had all been broken into pieces by the blast's shockwave and now lay on the ground.
"Ly, Liv, HURRY!"
After yelling out, Eric swiftly blinked beside the dead Thunder Panther's body and started covering its huge body with his mana.
He even used his Space Shield and Telepathic Slap to guard above his head and the panther's big body, so that the rocks falling from the ceiling wouldn't disrupt his concentration.
He was absolutely not going to betray his Brother Panther and leave it to rot inside the mountain... After all, its body could earn him good cash to burn.
Lyria and Livy came back to their senses and knew what they needed to do.
Livy, with full haste, picked up her sword and also collected the two Ethereal Residuums that both Soulweavers had dropped beside her. After that, she pulled out a mana lamp and lit it at full capacity to brighten the cave as much as possible, then dashed toward the passage exit.
Lyria used her Whirlwind Sprint at full speed and rushed toward her and Eric's weapons, which had been dropped on the floor, and also collected the remaining Soulweaver's Ethereal Residuum. After that, she took a quick look around and noticed the Luminous Stones that Livy had dropped previously—she also pulled those back into her Space Ring.
Following that, she also pulled out a mana lamp to brighten up the environment.
She kept an eye on the falling rocks from above and used Absolute Gravity to push them away from the exit, so that Eric could blink beside her.
She turned toward Eric and noticed that he still needed a few more seconds, so she signaled Livy to escape first.
Livy knew she couldn't nag about it, so she bolted out of the cave while using her WaterJet Whip to create an empty passage. But the number of rocks kept piling up, so she focused on escaping while destroying the large boulder-sized rocks that blocked the way—making it a little easier for Eric and Lyria to blow them away while escaping.
After a few more seconds, Eric finally managed to put the Thunder Panther's body inside his pocket watch and let out a deep breath.
If he hadn't had such high intelligence and mana control, it would have taken much more time to cover such a big corpse. He might joke around, but he was always very focused when training to improve himself—thus, his mana control was no less than Lyria's or Livy's, who were true experts in it due to their extensive hard work in their professions.
Eric glanced around, and his eyelids twitched. The previously huge, empty cave was nearly covered with large rocks, and his Space Shield above him was slowing down quite a number of threateningly large rocks right above his head.
He wasted no time and blinked toward the exit.
The moment he arrived beside Lyria, a catastrophic explosion took place where he had previously stood.
This time, the tremor was so horrifying that the entire mountain trembled and shook constantly—almost as if multiple meteors had suddenly teleported right into the cave and struck its base directly.
Both Lyria and Eric lost their balance and fell over.
Eric quickly covered their bodies with Telepathic Slap to avoid being buried by new boulders.
They glanced at each other with ashen expressions. They didn't waste a moment talking—just bolted out of the cave together.
They didn't hold back, using all their abilities to escape—including Crushing Blows, Whirlwind Sprint, Absolute Gravity, Blink, and Telepathic Slap.
Eric's heart was pounding like never before. He had always known—though not entirely sure of its limits—but now he knew without doubt that his Space Shield was the scariest ability of them all. Even a slowly moving snowflake could become a bullet if it remained trapped within the Space Shield for a few seconds.
They soon burst out of the collapsing mountain and saw Livy running while staring back anxiously.
"Keep running!" Eric boomed.
Lyria used her Whirlwind Sprint and joined Livy, making sure they didn't get crushed by landslides or rocks rolling off the collapsing mountain—while Eric blinked freely.
Eric also joined Lyria and Livy and kept slapping away rolling rocks with his Telepathic Slap.
After they ran far away, they all stopped and turned around to watch the huge mountain—along with a few nearby ones—collapse.
Their hearts pounded heavily inside their chests.
Looking at the devastation, Eric felt they had finally done it! They had now truly begun to reshape the geography of the world. They were now the destroyers of the world, the bringers of catastrophic calamity, the wielders of nuclear bombs!
For a long time, they stood silently.
While watching the dust slowly settle, Livy sighed and murmured.
"This mountain has become the burial place for the Whisperwood villagers..."
Both Lyria and Eric stayed quiet and didn't comment.
They at least now knew that those ghosts would no longer prowl around their village, complaining and starving...