章 215: Jumped #215
I frowned, pausing my scan as my energy encountered resistance in the sorcerer's mind, hitting a barrier of sorts. Or maybe a labyrinth would be a more apt description, considering its intricate patterns.
"You're a thousand years too young to attempt reading my mind, boy," Felix Faust said, grinning at me despite his circumstances as he continued trying and failing to pry my hand off his neck.
"Am I now?" I replied with a smile, raising an eyebrow at his confidence, to which the sorcerer merely scoffed and kept struggling to free himself from my grasp.
Honestly, he was right to be confident, considering how well-defended his mind was. There were so many intersecting barriers protecting his mind they resembled a maze more than anything else.
If I were to try to dismantle his psychic defenses, it would take the better half of my day, and unfortunately, I didn't have the time to try, nor did I have the right to detain him for that long.
Maybe if I didn't catch him in front of so many people, I'd be able to go through with it, but I needed to hand him over to the authorities. I'd be risking my reputation otherwise.
Alternatively, I could brute force my way into his brain, which would take approximately ten times the energy he invested into his psychic defenses and risk turning him into an imbecile and losing a significant portion of the prize.
Still, I had that much energy to spare and then some thanks to my latest power-up. Some arcane knowledge was better than none, and I'd be doing the world a favor if I turned this guy into an idiot by accident.
"Well, you're not wrong. I can't get through your mind defenses..." I said with a shrug, much to the sorcerer's satisfaction, as he gave me a smug, complacent grin.
"That said, I could still brute force my way through," I added, shaking my head as I increased the pressure on the sorcerers and sent my energy flooding his mind defenses, to which his smiled instantly froze and his eyes widened.
One after the other, Faust's mental barriers shattered as they were impacted by my flood of energy, accompanied by bits and pieces of his memory, until his mind was no different from an open book.
"You...!" The sorcerer slowly remarked, his body going limb and his eyes widening in disbelief as he stared at me in utter shock, but I paid him no heed, busy combing through his mind as I was.
Soon, I gathered all knowledge inside the sorcerer's brain, and my hand unconsciously tightened around his neck as I realized how many atrocities he'd committed in his hunger for power.
Murder, rape, and torture were some of the mildest crimes he committed, as he'd even caused multiple genocides, some of which were the most appalling in human history.
I had the urge to snap his neck and incinerate his body on the spot, but I refrained as I noticed several people in the street holding their phones and recording.
I gritted my teeth in frustration and settled for the next best thing as I started wiping the arcane knowledge I'd from his mind, and he seemed to realize it as he snapped out of his daze and resumed struggling.
"No...! No, please!" The sorcerer begged, but his pleas fell on deaf ears as I ravaged his mind and wiped all magical knowledge to ensure he wouldn't cause any more tragedies.
I quickly erased everything that was magic related from Faust's mind, and his expression instantly turned blank, marred by despair as he went limp in my grasp.
"You're lucky there are so many people around..." I remarked, grimacing as I reached into the sorcerer's ropes and retrieved the three wishing tablet pieces before tying him up and throwing him to my machines.
I then took the piece in my inventory and completed the tablet. Before I could do anything else, a portal appeared behind me, and a woman in a stage magician outfit appeared from within it.
"Stop! That thing is dangerous! You will destroy the city if you use it!" The woman exclaimed in alarm as several other portals appeared with people wearing magical ropes emerging from them.
Everyone had different intentions. Some wanted to have the stone for themselves, while others intended to keep it safe and away from the wrong hands, but they all demanded that I hand it over.
'Circe, Wotan, Brother Night, Witchfire, Zatana, and other magical heroes and villains...' I mused as I looked around, noting the faces of the people who appeared out of nowhere, ready to jump me at a moment's notice.
'Is this a fucking wuxia novel...?' I bitterly wondered, shaking my head at the sight of a dozen people getting ready to jumpe me. "Is this what you all want...?" I remarked, raising the wishing tablet in my hand, to which everyone's eyes followed.
"You can have it, but you'll have to share," I added as I wrapped my energy around the stone and squeezed it, turning it into dust, much to everyone's shock.
And before anyone could react, I wrapped my energy around each and every speck and sent them flying in all directions, which seemed to snap everyone out of their daze.
Wotan was the first to react as he scowled and summoned a giant barrier around the area to stop the specks from flying away. I didn't stand still, imbuing the Leviathan Axe with as much energy as possible before throwing it at the magical shield.
Zatanna and Witchfire shared a look before hurriedly channeling their magical powers and attacking the barrier with eldritch blasts. I followed suit with an energy attack, which seemed to do the trick.
The magical shield shattered under the combined attack, and the tablet stone's countless micro fragments scattered in all directions before anyone could do anything else.
Silence reigned as everyone turned to me with mixed expressions, mostly shock, and anger, but I didn't care. "There goes your precious stone. Now get the fuck out of my city," I calmly remarked as I leaked my energy and activated my menacing presence perk, focusing it on the villains.
The gathered magician's expressions instantly changed, unconsciously stepping back under my icy glare, except for Circe and Wotan, as they seemed unphased for the most part.
"What an interesting young man..." Circe said, raising an eyebrow as she looked around and noticed the other mages' expression's as they slowly floated away from me.
"I only came here out of boredom, and you didn't fail to entertain," The sorceress on, shaking her as she chuckled. "Until we meet again, boy," She concluded, giving me a strange look before creating a portal and walking through it.
"I call myself Wotan. It is not my given; I took it..." Wotan blankly said, crossing his arms with a hard-to-read expression. "Your seniors, especially the Justice Society, will remember me. You'd do well to mark my name as well," He went on as he turned his back and slowly flew away.
"As I will not forget today's transgression," The sorcerer concluded as he flew away, a portal suddenly appearing in front of him, which he entered and it promptly closed behind them.
I said nothing as I watched him leave before turning to the lingering sorcerer as I increased the intensity of my menacing presence perk, to which portals began appearing one after the other as the remaining villains departed.
"Good thinking. Fighting so many mages inside the city wouldn't have ended well," Zatanna said, smiling as she let out a sigh of relief and floated toward me.
I deactivated my menacing presence perk as I turned to the magical heroine, giving her a blank look before turning around and leaving, much to her shock.
"Maybe he's not a fan of stage magic," Withcfire said, chuckling as she looked at Zatanna's awkward expression, to which the latter could only sigh and shrug her shoulders.
...
"Too bad about the wishing tablet..." I sighed as I landed on my spot on the Wayne tower and sat down. I didn't intend to use the stone since it would kill half the city's population to fulfill the most minuscule of wishes, which I learned from reading Faust's mind.
But damn, did I want to study that thing. It was a whole-ass reality-warping, voice-activated device. It worked on Olympian magic, which wasn't my area of expertise, but I could have learned something about energy control from studying it.
Still, I got a decent prize for my effort thanks to reading Faust's mind, and the magical knowledge wasn't even half of it. As an immortal sorcerer, Faust had gathered countless riches, which I'll be claiming for myself.
I also learned Faust was even dumb enough to kidnap and rape Black Adam's wife (Isis).
In other words, I only needed to spill the beans to get rid of the sorcerer and get the angry, ancient Egyptian (Kahndaqian?) guy, who once started a world war and held his own against Superman, in my debt.
I still made an enemy out of an ancient sorcerer and a punch of emo, evil mages and gained the attention of Circe the man-eater, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.
Today was a good day.
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