Chapter 163: Euphoria

The frozen Cultivators would still be alive for a few more minutes, giving William plenty of time.

He left the protection of his Arrays, using the Space Element to flash forward and tap on each Cultivator’s heads, absorbing their Mana in mere seconds. The other Cultivators saw this, but there was nothing they could do unless they wanted to commit friendly fire.

The closest Cultivators saw how their frozen friends were treated, their eyes turning blood-red as they pulled swords and spears from their Space Rings. The only thing on their minds was to avenge their fallen friends, not caring about the Space Element that William had suddenly used.

They rushed forward, striking at William from all sides at each of his vital points. William stood motionless, only defending against the strongest attacks that would cause moderate damage to his Forcefield. The Cultivators assumed he had given up or was daydreaming, but the reality of the situation suddenly struck them, literally.

Their swords and spears bounced off William’s Forcefield, causing no visible damage. Their surprise didn’t last long, however, as they suddenly felt a stabbing or slicing sensation on their backs and sides.

The Cultivators fell to the ground and took their last breaths, their expressions mixed with shock and anger as they realized they had been betrayed by their comrades at the last moments.

William tapped on each of the fallen Cultivators as they died with the Mana Gathering Staff, absorbing what he could from their bodies before it was too late. He flashed back into the protection of his Arrays just in time to avoid a piece of sharp metal that rose from the ground, frustrating a faraway caster to no degree.

The caster was Chet, who was joined by his three companions, Julia, Jack, and Rena. His main Element was Earth, which had recently reached A-Rank with the help of a few treasures and his incredible talent in Cultivation that allowed him to reach the middle-stages of the Core Formation Realm in just a few months.

He cursed when William dodged the Earth Spike, which he thought was undetectable. Not only this, but its strength was at the peak of the Golden Core Realm, which would probably deal considerable damage to that defensive ability of William’s.

Little did Chet know that William could see the underground situation with his Navigation Talent. When the radar showed something moving underground, William thought it was another trap and dodged immediately.

William tried to dash out of his protective Arrays to absorb more Mana, but was forced to perform multiple backflips as Chet sent more Earth Spikes tunneling through the ground in his direction. It only took a few more attacks before William managed to trace the source of the Earth Spikes and launched a high-speed Ice Needle in the direction of the attacker.

Chet cursed again, retreating to a safe distance and avoiding the Ice Needle. He realized his attacks wouldn’t do much from this range, so Chet decided to back off lest he anger William, whose S-Rank was probably just not for show.

Will returned his attention to the other Cultivators, realizing that Chet wouldn’t be an easy target like the others. He opted to lower the number of annoyances first, before he ran out of Mana again.

William’s Absorption Arrays had reached the peak of their defensive power, strong enough to even absorb a peak Nascent Soul Realm attack.

He took advantage of this by funneling more Mana into the creation of another Perfect Lightning Array but without improvements, opting to focus on its attack speed more than damage to increase Mana efficiency against the weaker opponents.

Of course, the enemy Cultivators weren’t just going to let William do as he pleased a second time. They formed organized groups that were made up of each respective Sect’s members, using their teamwork to defend against the Lightning Array as if William was just another trial for them to complete.

William frowned at this, deciding to change up his strategy. He originally wanted to unlock the seals of his Mana Gathering Staff while using the weak Cultivators to his advantage, but William realized that there were way too many Core Formation Realm Cultivators for him to easily deal with.

He didn’t want to give up on their precious Mana just yet. Not to mention, William had just spotted a group of Cultivators wearing snowflake emblems surrounded by four fairies of different colors, which for some reason made his eyes turn red.

As William scanned his memories, he realized that it was the Enslavement Array triggering.

Is this the group that the Sect Master wanted me to kill? William tried to resist a tugging feeling that wanted him to kill the Cultivators, but it only made him feel immense pain.

He released a light grunt that was barely audible to those nearby, then decided to give in to the Enslavement Array. This group was already on the list of enemies attacking him, so there was no point in rejecting the Sect Master’s order.

William launched spells at some Cultivators close to him, but secretly he had adopted Chet’s method of launching sneak attacks, sending a metal spike over a hundred meters underground that slowly drilled in the Ice Immortals’ direction.

He added another dozen or so metal spikes to the group, sending them down the same tunnel to increase their speed while still striking down other Cultivators. The task was immense, William breaking out in sweat from the extreme difficulty.

The other Cultivators mistook this as a sign of weakness, launching more attacks with fervor as they believed the raid boss was about to fall.

Their dreams were instantly shattered when a group of screams resounded throughout the courtyard, everyone looking over to see the entire Ice Immortals Sect impaled with metal spikes.

Some of the leaders who had seen these metal spikes before looked in Chet’s direction, mistaking the attack as his doing, who shook his head in denial.

The leaders looked back at William, whose smile told them he was the real culprit of the move.

William wasn’t smiling because he was a psychopath, well not this time. Instead, a feeling of euphoria had rushed over him the moment he had completed the task given to him by the Sect Master, similar to the feeling he got when he picked up the golden treasure box in the trial tower.

It seemed that the previous feeling wasn’t just William’s joy for loot, but also his reward for completing an assignment. The method was actually quite brutal.

If you were punished every time you resisted an order, and rewarded every time you completed one, it was obvious that many affected by the Enslavement Arrays would eventually just accept their fate.

The enslaved would eventually start to seek out the euphoria, becoming an insatiable desire that couldn’t be stopped until the task was completed.

William was incredibly conscious of this fact, having briefly studied psychology in the past. His past experiences triggered red flags in William’s mind, making him even more willing to remove the Enslavement Array as soon as possible.

I’ve done everything the Sect Master asked, which means I can take out the leaders now. After that, I need to make my escape before something happens…

William sent more metal spikes into the ground, but a few Earth Mages with their hands now pressed to the ground instantly detected the movements, warning the Sect Leaders the moment the spikes approached their position.

“Leader, watch out! He’s targeting you!” one of the Earth Mages shouted to the bald-headed man wielding a battleaxe.

“So you’ve decided to go after us now? I bet you’re getting pretty tired!” the bald man laughed as he jumped in the air to avoid two metal spikes that suddenly rose from the ground.

William’s reaction time was better than both the Earth Mages and the battleaxe wielder, so by the time the Earth Mage had issued the warning he was already making his second move. He teleported in front of the man with a hand covered in lightning, stabbing through the bald man’s chest with incredible speed.

The leader had no time to react whatsoever and would have died instantly if not for William avoiding the man’s heart and instead targeting his left lung. William already had the Mana Gathering Staff ready, absorbing the Cultivator’s Mana with great speed as he didn’t even bother defending from a few physical attacks that were headed in his direction.

When a second group of Cultivators fell to the ground with various injuries caused by bladed weapons, confusing those nearby. The leaders became suspicious when they saw this, a horrifying thought entered their minds.

Did they take damage because they attacked William?

Another Cultivator that was much closer to the fight confirmed their guesses. He held his bleeding shoulder that was missing an arm as he yelled as loud as he could muster.

“He has some sort of treasure that does damage to you instead! I tried to cut off his arm and mine was cut off instead!”