357 Restriction

While I did manage to get rid of the few zombie seniors and even came out unaffected by the 'Wave' that turned them into their current form, I was still taken off guard by the use of a spatial tool.

I was indeed stronger than most people at the same stage as me, but that was only due to how well rounded my abilities were, I might have also had immunity towards corruption due to my identity as a player, but when it came to an obscure element such as Space, I had nothing that I could do about it…

However, that obviously didn't mean that I didn't take precautions for this, I already knew that the demons had a special spatial tool from the legacy message as well as my observations during my time as a disguised demon after all.

That was exactly why I asked for the protection artifact, transferred 3 of my stat points to Long and even dumped all of Light's newly gained stat points to Agility.

The instructions were simple, Long only had to use his enhanced 'Illusion' coupled with another ability that he had which suited the situation 'Perception Evasion' and hide little Light who would rush out at the first possible moment as they would deliver the letter which I have prepared beforehand to Blade and guide him to my location.

The 'Spatial Bomb' that Crane mentioned transported me along with them, but it only made me faint as it seemed the shock itself was all concentrated at me, otherwise I wouldn't have been even affected thanks to my 'Immunity'...

The artifact was exactly there to protect me in the case I fainted at least till Blade arrived, but luckily, I didn't even have to use it.

'That's better.'

As soon as I was transported to the shackles, both Long and Light should have dashed out without being noticed considering the abilities used and the tiny size of Light in his smallest form, while I wasn't even attacked so the artifact also wasn't activated.

I did plan to use it to break out of the shackles as soon as he tried using me as a threatening tool, but the shackles were purely made out of mental energy, which made it a problem that I could rely on myself to solve, that was how we reached the current point.

"So, I have directly walked into your trap...?"

"Kind of."

I had no plans of recounting the whole process of how he fell into it, that was the job of the stupid villains, not me.

However, what I didn't expect was that…

"So, I-I have no other chance…?"

As Crane started to talk, tears fell down his face and his expression was closer to that of a sad child, it seemed like I had somehow met another person with a multiple personality disorder.

At first he acted arrogantly, then acted like he was a foolish cornered villain, an uncaring death-ready who acknowledged his loss and now… he was acting like a crybaby who did something wrong.

"Don't even think of bluffing your way out of this, since you have been toiling for the sake of the demons till now, it's about time that you give back something to humanity…"

This time, it wasn't me that answered, it was Blade who had already gotten ready to act on the next step of the plan.

"Waaaah...waaa…"

What he did next was even more ridiculous, this time, he truly cried out loud as he started wiping out his tears.

"I really wanted to live on some more… wahhh… too bad…"

Tsk.

As Crane muttered out his words in a childish voice that suited his crying, a sudden click could be heard out of his body.

"Eh?"

Immediately, his face full of tears completely changed back into his serious one as he stared at Blade intently.

"You…"

"What? Did you really think that we would let you detonate yourself this easily? Like I said, you still have to pay up your dues."

Blade glared back as he had already seen behind the guy's acting just like I did. He had been simply stalling till now to detonate and bury away what he knew with as he really wasn't interested in how we captured him at all, but we weren't idiots standing in front of him.

Just like he did, we allowed him to stall this far just to make sure he wouldn't be able to escape, all of his methods to cover up his blunder including suicide were no longer an option. After all, one of the major reasons that I made this plan was to extract the information regarding the bases that were probably spread over all the Nature Domain, so he couldn't be spared until we manage to achieve our target.

"You have already managed to touch upon laws…?" Crane asked while maintaining his serious countenance this time.

"Not really, at least not yet, it's just that when it comes to mentality, this young friend has more punch to pack, quite the opposite to us how we both are…"

It was already part of the plan to restrict Crane using mental energy, which was actually quite a potent strategy, with both my mentality and Blade's which was a bit even higher in quantity than mine working together, locking Crane's whole mind space and making him unable to practice control over his whole body was quite simple.

It would have been much faster if Blade's mental energy caught up to mine in quality, but it was still sufficient to cage Crane in his place, paralyzing his whole body except the face which we left for last on purpose to let the stalling act go on.

"I got it, I really did underestimate this pest too much, well, it's none of my business anymore… I'm just a simple clone, you can't get anything out of me."

Seemingly having completely given up this time, Crane simply closed his eyes and stood in place, it was apparent that he wasn't planning to cooperate.

"Ah, you don't really need to worry about that, young Lan already has a very good plan as to how we can get what we need…"