Chapter 78: Like Father, like son, Manipulation is the Family business

As Rudeus stepped out of his boom tube followed by Emma in front of the burnt orphanage of Serbia where Wanda was said to be last seen around, he felt the neighbourhood to be too quiet.

The silence was unnatural in a town like this. It was like nobody was there in the area, not even animals or insects.

"Emma, try using your telepathy to sense anyone nearby." Rudeus ordered.

Emma concentrated while closing her eyes and tried to sense the minds of anyone present in the area while Rudeus also used his cosmic senses to find out what happened here and where everyone had disappeared to.

Rudeus had been practicing his low cosmic senses skill a lot recently. As he knew before his skill in a passive state acted much like a juiced up version of spider sense but in an active state his skill is completely different.

When active, it creates a sort of domain where Rudeus is alert of everything in his surroundings. The smallest of sounds, the faintest of smells, the tiniest of movements, even the vibrations in the air, everything gets registered in his senses. Right now, his domain of cosmic senses can cover upto a large continent or maybe if he tried hard, the entire planet.

But there is also a certain problem with the working principle of this skill. The more range he focuses his perk to actively cover, the harder it is for even his godly brain to keep up with the huge inflow of sensory data and information, giving him the mother of all headaches every time he tries to practice it.

Of course his alpha divine physiology actively tries to 'improve' his mind to handle this enormous inflow of data. So every time he uses the active skill of the perk, the next time it becomes a little easier for him to use and he is able to spread his senses a little easier and around a slightly larger area than his previous try. But of course that adaptability is not as fast as Rudeus would like. Also he isn't too keen on feeling that unbelievable headache too many times.

So even though Rudeus should use that perk continuously to make his mind and body adapt to it and master that power as fast as possible, in reality he wasn't able to do that continuously. He was not a masochist and so had to take it slow.

As Rudeus' cosmic senses spread around that area, he quickly realized the problem. There was nothing living in this area, absolutely nothing, not even an insect or a bird nearby. However he didn't stop and continued to expand his senses as much as he could without suffering any headaches. Only after covering a radius of about five kilometers did he finally find what he was looking for.

"Master, I think I found the girl along with a crowd a little further away from here. It looks like the angry mob which consists of almost every citizen of this town wants to burn and kill her for some reason." Emma spoke up and informed him of the same thing he had just found.

"That's really weird. Let's go and see what this is about then." Rudeus replied to her. He didn't just find this weird because a crowd of angry mobs wanted to kill a small child in this time and age or because of the absence of animals and birds nearby, no, he found it weird because he had sensed something else with his senses. He had sensed the presence of something truly evil and he didn't think it was the Scarlet Witch.

Rudues again opened a boom tube to an area near the gathering crowd. As they got out of the boom tube, they saw a scene only seen in the dark middle ages.

Wanda was tied to a wooden pillar around which an angry crowd had gathered which included even women and children as they were shouting and chanting 'Death to the witch' in a dazed and obsessed manner, their facial expressions like feral angry beasts.

"Talk of an angry mob. The only thing they are lacking here are pitchforks. And you thought that we could still live in peace despite the hate of ordinary humans towards us." Emma snorted in disgust at the people.

"Yes and I still stand by it because something is wrong with them. They seem... out of their sanity. Emma, check their minds and see if everything is alright with them." Rudeus said as he frowned at the scene in front of him.

He needed to do something soon if he wanted to save Wanda. He had to decide if he would take care of the mobs in a peaceful way still treating them as human beings or just get rid of them considering their inhumane practices.

And it all depended on whether they were doing this on their own free will or if something was truly manipulating them.

"What the-their minds, they are all muddled like something is slowly corrupting them making them unable to think well, making them act on their darkest negative emotions like fear, anger and hatred, lots of hatred." Emma said as she held her head in headache, confirming Rudeus' theory of the crowd being controlled.

"Negative emotions huh, As I guessed, this is the work of a demon, a real one. Emma, can you calm all of them down or take control of their minds." Rudeus asked.

"Well I alone can't take control of all of them. But my... 'daughters' back at home operating the Cerebra can help me. With their telepathic might enhancing mine, I can easily take control of the entire crowd." Emma answered.

"Do it then. I'll rescue Wanda from that wooden cross or whatever that pillar is supposed to be. That way I won't have to massacre the population of an entire town. Also look out for anything different from the ordinary. There might be a real literal demon among them. He would probably show himself once he loses control of theses lambs here." Rudeus began walking towards the crowd.

Emma followed his order and established a mental connection with the Cerebra enhanced psychic might of the cuckoos as she mentally guided them to take control of the minds of the hundred of people there.

The wild shouting and chanting for Wanda's death completely ceased as their eyes became dazed and their control over their own bodies ended. As Emma commanded them all to go back to their own homes and go to sleep, they began to quietly follow the order.

Rudeus was quite impressed at seeing this. He had seen the Professor controlling dozens of people in the movies of his previous life before but it was nothing close to seeing the Frosts controlling hundreds at the same time in real life.

However he didn't pay much attention to Emma's telepathy right now while walking towards the tied up Wanda, he just activated his cosmic senses skill again to try to determine the location of the demon he suspected was responsible for this fiasco.

He felt everything in the area, every movement, every breath, every life even some remnants of emotions of the crowd. But among them, the thing that he felt the most was an evil demonic presence coming from... right besides him.

He felt a tingle in his danger sense but just as he turned, he felt an invisible figure slashing his face with strength impossible for a normal human being to resist.

However, much different to the attacker's expectation, there were no claw marks on Rudeus' face, not even a single shallow scratch.

Instead, a small shriek was heard and a few broken black coloured claws could be seen lying on the ground.

"What in the name of hell are you?" The attacker asked in a shrill surprised voice.

"I am complicated." Rudeus gave an evil smile as he looked at the demon taking a human form, already having an idea of who this was due to the huge similarity of his demonic aura with the Lord of Hell he had felt before back at hell.

'Like Father, like son.' Rudeus thought.

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