Chapter 96: CHAPTER 96: PIEDRA OASIS (2)
"So, how are we going to do this?," Misery asked. The other two women just stood to the side waiting on an answer.
"I have been thinking about that," Night said with a big grin on his face. However, his grin started to fade as he looked to the side.
As he and Misery started talking, Grief had made her way over to the two chained up slave women to check their condition.
"Don't do anything crazy, Grief. I just knocked them out. They will be fine," Night said to the woman.
All she did was turn toward him and wave her hand before going back to inspect the women.
"Misery...Right now...I just want to kill them all...everyone except the slaves....the slaves we can set free," Night said distractedly as he was keeping an eye on Grief....he didn't quite trust her around abused women after her last stunt that lead to Distress becoming part of the crew.
"My plan is going to require a bit of effort, but it all depends on the strength these six demigods. Since there are slightly more Demigods than us.....I don't want to just start a full out battle and risk one of us getting hurt.....so we need to reduce their number as quickly as possible....I was thinking a full out soul assault first to see how many I can take out.....I really want to see how far I can push my ability and this a great testing ground," Night said unveiling his plot to the women.
"That would probably work," Grief said standing up from the checkup she was performing on the two slave women, "It will work well if we can manage to kill them all quickly and covertly. But do you think you can handle all the demigods at once?"
"The demigods shouldn't be a problem...I will try to take them one at a time to be safe.....I think that I should also be able to kill some of them in their dreams with little effort. As for the soul attacks on those that are awake, we will just see how it goes. It is nighttime.....and I don't think anyone below a God even stands a chance against me in a fight at night," Night said with a cocky grin. He was still riding the confidence that he got from dealing directly with the three Demon Gods.
"Grief, why don't you come back into my soul space to help out just in case? Misery and Distress can stay here to protect my body. You two....Kill anyone that enters the room," Night said. He really had Grief tag along because he felt like he could not trust her around all these tormented slaves. He really did not want to add to his collection of twisted women at the moment.
"Okay, I'll help you out," Grief said with a little sarcasm in her voice. It seemed like she had completely seen through Night's idea of putting her somewhere she couldn't cause trouble.
Night just watched as Grief started to absorb her body back into the bloodstone core. After a few seconds, Night collected the stone and put it back into its respective hiding place in his gauntlet. He then walked over to the fluffy looking bed and laid down. The soft bed and clean sheets were very relaxing to Night....after all, it had been almost two months since he left the City of Setting Sun. With a few reflections back on the past couple of months, Night relaxed and entered his soul space.
After entering his soul space, he instructed Grief to keep a watch over him but not to interfere unless he appeared to be in trouble.
Night quickly spread out his soul perception to encompass the entire Piedra Oasis. As the soul orbs of everyone in the oasis began appearing around him, Night was astounded by the number of people present. The population of the oasis had to be around four thousand people ....with more than half of them being slaves currently working in the mines below the city. The information he had said that this was one of the oases with the largest slave populations.....but Night had no idea it would be this much.
After getting the general layout of the oasis, Night moved his perception over to investigate the six demigods.
In his perception's view of the oasis, Night didn't take a long time to find the six demigods of the oasis. Two Level 3 demigods were working with several groups of guards to keep a large number of slaves under control in the mines. Two demigods, one peak level and one Level 3, were guarding the perimeter walls around the oasis. And Pedro's two brothers were busy having a good time drinking. To Night's surprise, the older of the brothers was only a Level 4 Demigod as well...but the brother Night had met earlier was only a Level 4 Demigod.
'Someone must have been lying to their younger brother about their strength,' Night thought to himself with a chuckle.
"Misery, it seems like some are actually a bit weaker than we expected. They have one peak level Demigod, as you said, but they only have one Level 5 Demigod...so this should be relatively easy," Night said through his mental connection.
"Ya...so why don't you get started? I really hope you leave a few that I can bleed dry. I am hungry from all that traveling," Misery said with her usual selfish thoughts.
"I am still doing some investigating," Night responded, "Let me do a bit of thinking first."
After reviewing for a while, Night was thrilled with his findings. The takeover of this oasis was going to be a lot easier than he thought. The six demigods were also relatively weak in terms of soul strength. Night thought that he could easily deal with the others once they went to sleep. He had originally planned on luring the two Piedra Brothers away from the oasis, but he didn't feel that was necessary now. His only concern was dealing with the peak demigod that patrolled the oasis walls.
"I think that we should take over the mines first. I don't want someone to go crazy and start activating collars on all the slaves. Let's set them free first. I can send one of you down in the mines to start directing the freed slaves to start preparing themselves for a takeover of this oasis," Night said to the three Keres.
With the plans set, Night began to focus the task of destroying the enemy Demigods.
Although he was pretty confident, Night wanted to start his takeover of this oasis with as little disturbance as possible.
Night reached out with his soul perception again and concentrated on the roughly 4000 souls in the oasis. With a bit of effort, he began to focus in on the demigods. With little effort, Night mowed through the weaker demigods like their souls were blades of grass. He had killed the two mine demigods and the weaker wall demigod fairly quickly. But, the two Piedra brothers were actually dealt with the easiest. They practically had no soul defense at all and Night managed to lock them in a dream state. He was saving a few presents for his Keres. Night's soul had gotten pretty strong and he could easily deal with lower level demigods.
However, his easygoing didn't last forever. He felt like he hit a roadblock with the peak level demigod that guarded the oasis. From Night's observations, the old man appeared to have mastered six concepts related to the spear. As with most weapon's concepts, they offered considerable protection for the man's soul.
Night just didn't have enough soul strength to finish dealing with the peak Demigod without risking harm to himself. He felt that he was just slightly lacking in power to attack without risk. He was left trying to find an opening for an attack on the soul orb...and wishing that he had a way that he could boost his soul strength temporarily.....then an epiphany hit him.
"Ruins. Rust. Crumble. Collapse. Broken. Burnt. Detonate. Destruction," Night mentally said to himself as his body channeled the Destruction Skill. Night knew this would give him a minute of more than double the normal physical power.....but he had never tried to increase his soul strength with the skill.
For his entire month-long trip to the Meeting of Cities, Night had been physically practicing the Destruction Skill in an attempt to initiate the Concept of Destruction....in order to bring up his Darkness Concept count to four of the six concepts. He would only be missing the Concepts of Doom and Retribution before he could attempt to become a God.
Now seemed like a good chance to try to put the Destruction Skill to full use....by making his soul go into a strengthened beserk state...he had never tried this before...so...hopefully, this method would give him the boost he needs.
Night felt a surge of soul strength that he immediately channeled into an attack on the peak level demigod's soul. It was an overwhelming amount of strength and the force exerted on the enemy demigod's soul was causing it to crack and break apart. With a roar of effort, Night pushed more of his soul strength to squeeze...then the peak demigod's soul exploded.
Night could feel a rumble through the physical world as the demigod's soul collapsed on itself. But then he felt a very familiar and welcome feeling...he could feel a mixture of darkness element and soul energy beginning to draw towards him. He was going to breakthrough in the Destruction Concept.
Night was thrilled that he had found the key to understanding the concept. Destruction was not just a physical skill.....it also functioned to strengthen the soul. As such, Night was starting to feel a need for more soul energy due to the breakthrough.
Thankfully, he had tons of resources available. Night reached out his soul perception to blanket the entire oasis. One by one he began crushing the soul orbs of the inhabitants of the oasis. No one was spared except the slaves. Anyone related to the Diego Family died.
After some time, Night finally started to feel like his concept had started to stabilize. He was thrilled that his breakthrough was a success....then he felt extremely exhausted and everything went black.
Night was in a weird place. He couldn't quite form complete thoughts. Everything was a jumbling mess inside his head....but then it didn't even feel like he had a head. He was moving but also sitting still. His eyes were opened and closed at the same time. He could feel both pleasure and pain at once.
Then he was back in the familiar feeling soul space.
"What was that?," he said to himself only to have Grief come up and give him a big squeeze.
"I am so glad that you woke up," Grief said, "We thought you were dying."
"What?," Night asked, "What happened?"
"We don't know. You passed out in your soul space. Your body was still fine, but it was like you were unconscious...in your own soul space," Misery said.
"It must have been the rebound from using the Destruction Skill on my own soul," Night said, "How long was I out of commission?"
"Only about an hour," Grief said, "Misery and Distress have started to clear out the remainder of the guards from the oasis. You managed to kill most of them, but there were still a good bit left...Do you think you can let me out to help?"
Feeling rushed to finished his current task, Night put the issue of his 'out of soul' experience to the back of his mind and sat up in the comfy bed. With a flick of his hand, a bloodstone was now resting on the floor and quickly forming a beautiful woman's body.
"Grief, go help Misery and Distress deal with the rest of the Diego Family people," Night said as he stood up and started to gain his bearings, "I am going to get some loot."
Night had already inspected the oasis with his perception, so he knew exactly where all the good stuff was stored. It only took him a minute to reach the warehouse that the Piedra brothers used to keep all their riches. Even though he had viewed the fortune with his perception, it didn't really register just how much treasure was in the building until he actually laid eyes on it. Wearing a gigantic smile, Night practically dove into the treasure trove with greedy abandon.
Within the next two hours, Night actually felt financially rich for the first time in his life. With the piles of treasure and supplies stored away in his maxed out storage rings, he had really racked up literal tons of treasures. There was actually so much in the building that he couldn't fit it all in his storage rings....he couldn't even fit a quarter of it all. He actually started to get really selective at the end of his looting because he was running out of storage room.
'Now...I just need to get these freed slaves off to a good start.....then it is time to go meet some old friends,' Night said to himself as he walked out onto the streets of Piedra Oasis.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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BrokeButton Slow progress lately. I am trying to catch up and get a few things done with the story. I am hoping that by the end of this weekend that I will be back to daily release schedule.
Losing chapters was a mental blow I wasn't expecting. The rewrites also seem like complete shit to me......I keep saying to myself....it sounded better the first time......maybe because I feel rushed to catch back up....
Thanks for sticking with it while I work this out!
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