Will you kill

Brie looked onwards in shock as Claire threatened Caspian. 

She had grown up in the city when young, well protected by her parents. Sure, their world shattered to pieces when they were thrown to a remote village, but Zayne still protected them. Not long after Zayne and Claire partnered up, once again well protected. 

She never thought between friends such words would be spoken at all. 

She was spooked at Claire's words, for the first time realizing, every child they saved here belonged to a criminal organization. They will be raised to become criminals. In here, fighting for her interests means putting her life on the line, not her dessert. 

She stayed silent as she watched the war of will between Claire and Caspian. 

Finally, it was Caspian who gave in. 

Claire sat down in front of Deeepsi, placing her hand on his heart, then closing her eyes. 

Next moment, she opened her eyes in his innerworld. 

As soon as she did, a Jackal jumped at her. 

A mirror of fire opened in front of the jackal, incinerating it. 

The next one jumped into a water mirror, getting snuffed out like a fire. The next one jumped into the ice mirror, getting frozen upon touch, then blowing up into a thousand pieces. 

This is the supplementary ability of the mirror eyes, combined with the mirror method Caspian taught her in the beginning. Looking at the blood beasts dropping like flies, she understood why the Wulin family left these reapers alone. 

A mana parasite can only infect elementals. By virtue of having so many different seeds of magic, Wulin descendants will always be immune to them, no matter how great these parasites grow. They need a spirit world such as the innerworld to live in. Once they get acclimatized to an environment the opposing mana force will kill them entirely.

However, she grossly underestimated the size of an elemental's mana. Especially one engineered for the purpose of almost turning an elemental. 

For breaking the slave contract, she only needs to travel around the periphery. The number of jackals attacking her grew. Claire started pulling mana from the mana core, put a gigantic fire wall, then started shooting them all with fire arrows. 

She literally had to use every trick at her disposal to just maintain her position in front of the contract magic circle. 

This circle is different and more complex than the one she tore off from Caspian. 

The enslavement magic on Caspian only imposed their will, making Caspian do their bidding, kind of like a robot. 

There is no such thing in this circle at all. 

Instead, the magic circle is built upon an instruction in the first place. Always follow the mission. Do not forget the mission. Your entire life is nothing compared to the mission. 

' Mission must succeed ' 

This is the base of the magic circle. 

Other than this base, there is a will. 

'When I die, mana in my core will return to the Wulin patriarch. In my death, I will pierce the abyss parasite with the Reaper's hook. '

This was the summary of the runic circle that represented the enslavement. So, as long as he does not die, this super strong soldier will only live and die for the mission, in this case, it is destroying the 'wildnest orphanage ' Which is the chain of orphanages opened by Wulin. 

Claire paused for a moment, then double checked the entire magic circle to see if any runic symbols she missed that contradict what she deciphered. 

Nope. There are thousands of runic circles which define his mana core's path back to Wulin patriarch, another thousands of runic circles that would get placed on the parasite when the hook pierces through it, but none of them are for the safety of Deeepsi, or for the safety of surrounding people. 

She was shocked and disgusted by the selfishness of the people. 

First, the orphanages are a chain. As such, if he succeeded in destroying one, there's no guarantee he won't go to the next to destroy it. 

Second, the abyss parasite is extremely corrupting. Even a touch of its mana is enough to turn someone insane. Such a beast is just left alone in a place of destruction, anyone can take it, as long as they can subdue it, not only reapers. Worse yet, anyone passing by could fall to its influence, turning the area where this beast fell into an abyss itself. 

There are so many ways this could go wrong. 

For now though, there's no straight way to destroy such a simple magic circle of enslavement. It does not enslave in the first place, it just asks for fulfillment of promise, which was the contract made. 

You need a special magic for voiding contracts, which is so rare, it could almost be called unique. 

So, this contract could only be transferred. So, she transferred the contract to herself. She just has to resist the pull of the contract till she finds a way to void it. If nothing else works, she could find the person who placed the contract and kill him. 

Piercing the parasite is beyond her strength at the moment. 

However, at this time, there was a movement in the Deeepsi's core. 

There was a tremor, and the jackals which were attacking all turned to the core. In this time, Claire broke the runic link between the contract and will, then transferred the contract to herself. 

She just stayed around to watch now, like a curious cat. 

The tremor continued. 

All the jackals rushed to the red blob. It's only now that she realized the indistinguishable arms were actually tails, and there was nobody to the creature at all. There was a grotesque head, from which eight tails emerged. Every few seconds, a few bloody jackals emerged from its tail ends. These flayed jackals rushed to the mana core, ripping it to shreds and eating it. As they ate, they grew flesh. When they gained flesh to a point, they returned to the tails, becoming part of the parasite once more. 

The main head of the jackal held the mana core in its mouth, holding it tight. 

Before, the mana core was like a dead beast, not moving at all. Now though, it was like a swirling sea, with waves rippling on its surface, one deeper than the other. The jackals that went to bite the sea fell in between gaps in the sea, then the waves closed in, popping them like little bags of blood under a car compressor. 

The blood that entered the mana core turned black like smoke, losing color. 

Claire could only assume while she was removing the contract, Deeepsi himself might have gained energy to fight back. Given he has chosen to fight back, all she had to do was provide assistance now. 

She sighed and sifted through the spells she knew. At this time, there's no need for the complex. 

Two fire arrow towers, two electricity balls. 

As she conjured those circles behind her, she started taking down the jackals as fast as she could. The electricity balls fell into the sea, zapping a whole herd of jackals like a swarm of mosquitoes. 

Even she did not expect such lethality from the electric balls.

On the second use, she discovered it's not her, but the other guy. The electricity just has synergy with his mana core. It amplified the electricity more than ten times, and even better, once the electric ball touched the black oceanic mana, it's like it has a life of its own. It never went down by itself. 

She shifted to shooting these electric balls frequently, soon, the entire surface of the mana core was covered with electric balls. Confident that the current status quo could be maintained, Claire withdrew. 

Brie had her back, injecting vitality, while Caspian was sitting behind Deeepsi, transferring his mana in. 

Brie transferred her vitality once more. 

" I will take you home now, that is, if you are willing. " Claire proposed to Brie.

Brie shook her head. If hse leaves, she wouldn't know if an accident occurs and Claire gets hurt. Anyway, if she is around, she could help, but if she goes away, leaving Claire with a guy who looked like he wouldn't hesitate to cut her neck in her sleep, Brie will never forgive herself. 

As such, she chose to remain, no matter how much she wanted to run to her uncle to tell him all about what happened these days. 

Claire did not know all these internal struggles, and only observed Caspian with a critical

After about half an hour, Caspian opened his eyes. 

" What did you do ? " Claire asked eagerly. 

" Transferred my mana to him. How about you ? Did you Succeed ? " he asked eagerly. 

" half a success, I guess. These bastards totally planned for his death. Usually contracts like these could be broken using the fake death poison. In a controlled environment, safety level increases. However, the maker of enslavement contrat coded certain limits, so even to pretend dead, your brother needs to go to the territory of death. Returning after satisfying these limits is almost in the territory of gods. " Claire told him. 

the gods she is talking about was the olympian athletes, trained pros who dedicated their entire life achieving a level of physical fitness impossible for a civilian, or a randomly trained child soldier. 

Caspian looked crestfallen. 

" I am not quite sure of it, but I have a way perhaps for him to maintain his mana core. But .. you must promise to keep the secret. " She asked. 

" I promise " Caspian spoke decisively.