Crown of Thorns

In the midst of the night sky, a black rift opens up and the insectoid figure of Juniper steps out.

Hovering with her wings spread outside the city walls, which, at some point, should encase the entire city, the moth turns around to look back at the black tear in space that brought her here.

Watching on for a few seconds how the tear disappears like a wound closing up, she opens her inventory before narrowing her eyes and activating the recall function of the transmission mirror which she used to get here.

Almost instantly the mirror appears in her inventory.

Sighing in relief, she closes the screen and focuses back on her goal, gaze moving to the eerily glowing peak of the tower in the centre of the yet unfinished city.

Licking her lips in excitement at getting her hands on such a juicy form of magic as mind control, the demon moth did not hesitate any longer and started flying towards the tower in which the lone magician resided.

From what she could remember, this magician had some kind of dream or vision of a city that he is trying to realize through enslaving all the people in the surrounding towns and villages.

His magic is very powerful against normal humans and can even allow him to contest against entire armies if done right, but there is little it could do to someone like Juniper.

Even if one of the puppets did look up in the sky and spied the approaching demon, the connection between puppet and caster is one sided, so he has to actively make an effort to see through them.

The minds of the puppets under his control are too damaged and restricted to be able to report such things on their own.

Something Juniper hoped to fix once she got her hands on the spell.

But back on track.

It would have changed nothing, while enough people could whittle down even the strongest magician or fighter, with only a few legendary individuals being the exception in this world, this demon moth, thanks to her [Draining Touch] and [Focus] skill, is literally a tireless monster that could keep on going as long as there were still enemies for her to drain.

That combined with the fact that her strength is on the level where she could tear through hordes of demons in the upper abyss meant that regular humans simply stand no chance of even harming her.

Like that she arrived at the top of the tower unhindered and directly crashes through one of the many floor-to-ceiling windows.

With her haki spread out, her eyes directly snap to the hunched figure of an old man missing lots of teeth and draped in a long dark green robe that drags on the ground over which he wore another fancier red cloak with white fur lining the edge.

The strange hat with feather plum almost falls off his head from how fast he turned his head to look at the rain of shattered glass falling around the demon moth that just busted into his home.

As Juniper stands in the same room as the old man, a familiar scent enters her nose, causing her head to tilt in surprise before shaking it.

'A fallen soul? Right, really shouldn't be surprised. This guy is slaving thousands of innocent people to death to build a city for him, he obviously is quite the bad person.' Having gathered herself, she puts a smile on her face.

"Sup, sorry for the intrusion, but you got something that caught my interest~, so I decided to swing by and take a closer look." She explains lazily while brushing off some of the glass shards that fell on her.

Backing off slowly from the unknown and clearly inhuman intruder, the old magician lifts one of his hands and aims it at Juniper, who raises an inquisitive eyebrow at his action.

"You sure that is a good idea?" She asks casually as the same green thorns that make up the crowns around the enslaved people's heads create a floating circle around his palm.

Right after the thorns appear, the moth feels a stinging pain in her head and a crown of thorns manifest around her horned head.

For a brief moment a relieved expression crosses the old magician's face before it was shattered just like the crown around Juniper's head.

*CRACK*

The windows around the tower fracture as the unbridled pressure of Juniper's conquerors haki is released.

'If the determination of a normal human with some talent in magic can withstand this old coot's powers, there is no chance in hell that it will be able to affect me with my current mastery of conquerors haki which is a weaponization of will itself.' Tearing apart the flimsy attack on her mind, the demon moth lets her haki roll out and crash against the walls of the tower that immediately start to creak, crack and groan from the pressure.

Falling on his ass, gasping for air and sweating like a pig, the old magician stares terrified at the demon surrounded by broken glass that reflects the silver light of the moon.

Looking down at the mess that her target had turned into, her glowing green eyes surrounded by abyssal black curve in amusement as a sadistic smile begins to stretch across her face.

"Ta ta ta~, didn't I warn you? Now I will have to kill you~." She says while walking up to him.

Once standing over the sweat and tear covered man, Juniper scrunches her nose a bit as the smell of piss started to waft off him along with a quickly expanding wet spot on his pants.

Bowing over to stare down at him, she tilts her head with the sadistic grin still in place as she ignores the disgusting state he's in.

"Or maybe you teach me all about that fancy magic trick of yours and I might just let you live~, despite your grave offence against my innocent person kekekekeke~ how does that sound? Good?" Nodding furiously at her words, the magician writhes on the ground, covered in his own piss and short of breath because of the pressure weighing down on him.

With an amused snort, the pressure disappears, and the moth walks over to the only chair in the room before turning it to face the magician and sitting down with her legs and arms crossed.

"Then what are we waiting for? Start teaching~."

It took a few minutes for the magician to recover enough to speak coherently in Juniper's presence, but when he did, he quickly spilt every piece of information he possessed about his magic.

With the magician's help and her [Focus] skill running at maximal output, the moth managed to gain a clear understanding of the magic used by the guy whose name she never bothered to find out, and actually gained it as a skill in her system under the name of [Crown of Thorns].

Looking over the description of the spell in her system, the moth is satisfied and turns back to the old man sitting on the ground in front of her.

"That should be enough. Now as a last thing before I leave, bring all your slaves to the bottom of the tower." Not daring to refute the demonesses order, she soon felt a large number of beings gather up around the tower.

"I-it is d-done." Came the weak voice of the old man.

"Great." Without further ado, Juniper releases one of her mantis blades and decapitates the magician while taking out a golden coin that she just created through her system.

As the head and body slump to the ground, all the people enslaved by the magician collapse to the ground like puppets without strings.

Not only that, out of each body, a weak bluish whisp starts to float up.

Witnessing this scene from one of the windows at the top of the tower, the demonic moth smiles before flipping the coin in her hand into the air.