The chant continued. Its monorhyme had now messed in with the background noise of moans and wrestles. He had no way of seeing them, but it wasn’t hard to conjure up the image of other prisoners taping the floor or kicking the wall while having their heads wrecked by the attacking force.

  If Zalanir didn’t have his experience with soul magic thanks to the soul toddler and the memory of Verizss’ia, he would be in a similar situation with them. The assault was instant, and the pressure mounted right from the get go, after all.

  And yes, that force was a soul, or part of a soul, to be exact. He would be stupid to not realize that now. Very similar to the soul toddler that he had captured, though this one was much bigger and savage with its attack. It had to be related to that ongoing ritual.

  Continuing his bombardment, Zalanir focused his attention on creating another cage. With previous experience, he got one after the fourth try this time. Its size was still only one-tenth of the current one confining the soul toddler, but he had to make do with what he got.

  His mind was free from the pain now that his mana had suppressed the invader to its spot. Good. Thinking while having his mind gnawed at wasn’t the best way to come up with a plan.

  Dissection. He could at least do this, right? Risky, but possible. Its size was big, but with its flexible jelly form, there was a possibility of singling out a piece of it, then storing it inside the other cage. Even though he still had no idea what to do with them yet, having another to test with besides the toddler never hurt. This one could be the older and grumpy sister. Yeah, let’s get her a sibling.

  Zalanir lessened the number of attacks he threw at the invader while condensing some of them in a spot. His mana was about half now. Two tries. He had to succeed.

  After giving it 15% of his mana, Zalanir threw the big mana attack at the soul jelly. The cage was on standby to swoop up any that was separated, but then disaster struck that made him seriously consider if his mind was even normal.

  He wanted a soul sister, and the big attack showed some promise when the spot where his attack hit almost detached itself from the body, but the cage he just made was too damn small. Even if he succeeded there, there was no way he would be able to trap the separated portion.

  Even worse. After getting struck with the recent attack, the invader had started to … retreat. Looked like it understood that Zalanir wasn’t a tomato. Served it right. Or him, or her, or whatever. Why did he think about gender at this moment? Sister. Hadn’t he already decided on that?

  No, he couldn’t let this chance go away. There was no time to condense another big attack. A salvo style like Adaptability Bolt had to do.

  At the same time, he removed the cage currently trapping the toddler. Without anything keeping it in one place, the toddler started to munch on his mind again. Rat! Enduring the dull pain, Zalanir summoned the small cage to trap it, but as if it was really a rat, it sneaked away at the last minute.

  He had no time for this. The jelly was pulling away. Calm down. This had to work. A bit of an overkill, but Zalanir threw five mana attacks at the toddler, then summoned the small cage to trap it inside. Bingo! It was a bit bigger compared to his last one, but who cared anyway? It just meant that the second one would be a tad smaller. Shouldn’t be a problem, as he had no time to redo the process.

  Redirecting his attention toward the invader, he left no care for his mana anymore. Driving up everything in his possession, Zalanir shot them all into retreating jelly, and conjured the large cage on top of it to swoop up anything.

  Perhaps with a bit of luck, or his calculation was perfectly ten out of ten, the last three attacks cut off a portion of the jelly, and he slammed the cage on top of it in that same instance.

  Ouch! Zalanir snapped out of his victory moment when something bonked his head. Turned around and readied his arms in front, but all he saw was still the same dark gray color wall, though the mosses had filled the wall compared to the area near the bars. Somehow, Zalanir was now standing at the very back of the jail.

  His body had probably retreated back on its own during the battle with the soul invader. Zalanir rubbed his head, hoping to ease the pain. Had to be that silly ceiling that did this.

  Refocusing on what happened inside his mind again, Zalanir could no longer feel the presence of the invader. His win then. A feat to celebrate after a chain of unfortunate events. Not only did he drive the enemy off, he also captured a part of it for his own use.

  The two cages were floating side by side, each housing a kid for his own plan. Now what to do? The sister was about five times the size of the toddler. Not too bad. He would love a bigger portion, but couldn’t be too greedy.

  He moved both of them together, and the unanimated sister sprang to life and rushed into the bars. The action scared the toddler into retreating to the opposite corner. He pushed the smaller cage afar, and both of them returned to normal again.

  After redoing the same process twice, now Zalanir faced a tough decision. The sister wanted to get the toddler for sure, likely to devour, so should he do that? Not that he favored the toddler or anything, but he just wasn’t sure if facilitating this could lead to something unexpected. Those were inside his head at the moment. Anything that went wrong there had the potential to end his life for good.

  Moving back to the bars, the cultists were still chanting that uninspiring melody. Though there were two things that had changed.

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  The first one was that the emerald glowing ball of light on top of the summoning altar had reached the size of his fist. It wasn’t entirely visible to his eyes, but there was no doubt movement and disturbance in the air coming from the jail’s direction. It wasn’t that hard to put one and one together to understand that the soul invaders were likely the culprits for that. Battery? Very likely.

  The other change was the three opening crates in front of the summoning altar. His spot didn’t allow him to see what was inside, but judging from the expression of all the cultists, including the boss man who was still standing next to the summoning altar, seemed like everything was still going according to their plan.

  Which meant that his action just now didn’t seem to matter one bit. Good, because he could put his fear of getting punished to rest, but it also sucked equally. He had thought that he did something major, but looked like it was just a child’s play in the grand scheme of things.

  Together with the lingering moaning, there were also curses, huffs, and explosive sounds. The ground even trembled for a short while. Seemed like someone had decided to attack the jails. He couldn’t really tell where, but based on the fact that the cultists did nothing to prevent it, didn’t seem like it could bear any fruit.

  A stupid thought crossed his mind while looking at the sphere floating on top of the altar. Why now? Why did he think about snatching a part of that sphere as well? But it was possible, theoretically. It was a soul, so couldn’t he guide it here using the same method as with the toddler?

  He had no mana, though. He could only create two cages as of now, so if he drew the invader here again, he would have no tools to defend his mind. Just a little then. A confirmation of some sort that his hunch was correct would be good enough.

  An imaginative hand popped up in his head and was ready to go again, but then he reshaped it to a half-sized tennis ball. This one looked much better than the plain hand.

  Slowly, he pushed it toward the summoning altar, but then a problem showed up and basically ended his attempt after three seconds. The distance from his jail to the altar was just too far away. The last time he did this, his hand was basically on top of the altar, so luring out the toddler wasn’t an issue. But now, the tennis ball went poof after only three seconds. Ah, how silly!

  Giving up on the test, Zalanir sat down on the spot. He had emptied his mana pool at the fight with the invader recently, so it would be best now to Meditate while waiting for the eventual conclusion of the summoning ritual. Better focused on himself rather than worrying about the inevitable.

  The change of melody to being rushed and higher pitch pulled Zalanir out of his meditation. 40%. Hadn’t been that long. But it was hard to focus now that the chorus had arrived. Big sweeping and dramatic melodies? Looked like there was at least someone there with good taste. The money notes were a bit lackluster, though. The buildup progress was good, but he would prefer A-sharp near the end for a more energetic, upbeat vibe.

  If the summoning altar and the ball of light were the center of attention before, they were even more so as the whole area was now engulfed in their green shades. The ball of emerald light, specifically, was spinning wildly in the air instead of staying static as before. All the torches were still there, but their fiery red-orange light had retreated to god-knows-where already. The same also applied to the bioluminescent fungi on all the stalactites. It was all green wherever his eyes went.

  Then the ground shook. Zalanir was marveling at the progress of the ritual when his ears picked up the sound of weapons colliding and screaming. A prison break?

  “Stay where you are! Finish the ritual!” The flail man howled.

  Though the melodies were no longer in sync. Out of tune chanting started to appear. One or two voices at first, but the number increased as the quake got angrier and rowdier. All the shouting and laughing from nearby prisoners also added to the ugly mess of the melodies now.

  Zalanir pulled back to the rear of the small and narrow cage. There was no doubt someone was coming. Enforcers? Likely. Could also be enemies of the cultists. But whoever it was should’ve been on their side. Escape could be possible now. Zalanir sat down and meditated. Every drop of resources counted for what was to come.

  Oooooooooooo! A long, loud, deep-pitched cry jerked Zalanir out of meditation.

  47%. Great. Not even that big of a recovery. But what was that sound? A buffalo?

  Rushing to the bars again, his eyes immediately focused on the majestic, bicolor stag of red and brown. Its breath ignited the air in front. Furs reminded Zalanir of a lion’s mane. Its head was up to the middle point of the summoning altar, but the two brown, branched antlers mounted on top pushed its height over the altar by a good margin.

  It stood at the center of the chamber, head looking up, and loosed another deep holler soon after the first.

  Where did that stag come from? All the crates were thrown aside to a corner, including the three that were put in the center of the ritual. Something like body parts still hung on top of two crates, as far as he could see. Animal?

  Rotten scent invaded his nose again. Had it gone away at some point? He didn’t remember. Perhaps it was still there, just that his attention was on something else. But now it marked its return with an even stronger presence. No longer alone, it brought accomplices in terms of the rancid and a tad of yeasty odors. Together, they raided his nose aggressively.

  [Blazethatch Stag — Level 49]

  He had his hunch, but after using Identify, he was sure that the stag was a similar creature to the birduomera. Looked like the summoning ritual had finished. That Murkvine Dawdler back then would stand no chance against that. Perhaps even the eagle as well.

  Ten cultists remained inside the chamber, including the boss man. He stood lightly behind the stag to the right. The flail was in his right hand, with the spiky ball rest on the ground. All of their eyes pointed toward the main curving entrance to the chamber.

  There was also no sound from the prisoners. In contrast to the joy from earlier, for some reason, they also chose to remain silent.

  No longer shimmering the green shade, all four pillars and the altar had returned to their silent origins, reflecting the red-orange color of all the torches again. The flames inside flickered along with the eerie vibe of the chamber.

  The ground shook again. But this time, there was no scream or weapons crashing. Only footsteps. Plenty. Light. And then they also became naught.

  He hated this sensation. His muscles tensed up. He cracked his neck to the left, but the out-of-place echo off the wall prevented him from doing the same to the right. He curled and scratched his fingers inward, flicking and discharging all the sweat taking nested inside his palm.

  A trigger. The whole chamber was waiting for something, or someone, to pull the trigger. Zalanir was waiting for this short but tormenting period to pass.

  Whoosh! Four spherical bubbles of yellow light flashed brightly in the middle of the chamber. As if the compressive force was removed from the stressing spring, shooting it up from where it was, all hell broke loose within the chamber.