Chrysalis Chapter 1739 - She Who Reaps The Harvest

Crinis felt far from content. In fact, that description fell woefully short. Fury simmered within her. It bubbled over intensely. Every bit of her shadowy, intangible form ached to seize those repulsive… beings and tear them apart.

Tear them apart once more.

Maybe even a fourth round, should the opportunity arise. But time was scarce, given the sheer number of these tear-worthy foes, which only fueled her wrath further.

They had dared to assault her master. A single instance would have been an outrage, an affront she couldn't abide, yet they went beyond that! Indeed, they had struck at him four-hundred and eighty-six thousand, three hundred and thirty-two times!

Even the mere thought of targeting her master exceeded what she could endure. Without her strict commands holding her back from unleashing a terrifying feast of devastation, Crinis would etch into these rude offshoots a terror so profound they'd fear sleep for ten years straight!

No, her master compelled her to show mercy to those wholly unworthy of it. This grated on her to the point of twisting her tentacles in frustration.

Deprived of the revenge she rightfully craved, Crinis had scant ways left to release her bottled-up fury. She was strictly forbidden from her usual methods, and with the orders her master had issued, she was left resorting to the pettiest forms of retaliation.

Like a shadowy maestro, concealed in the darkness, Crinis commenced her sinister task.

It began at the battle's edges. Extending her tentacles, Crinis targeted the weary, the injured, the lone stragglers. Her Soul-Seeker Cilia could pass right through armor, skin, and skeleton, allowing her to tamper with the minds and psyches of those she ensnared.

With an wicked chuckle to herself, Crinis selected her initial prey.

With the horde of appendages crashing down on the troops, only Crinis could monitor them all. Despite their efforts to repel them amid the frenzy of combat—a challenging endeavor—some were destined to slip past.

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The cilia pierced the barriers of Crinis' ill-fated target, gliding through his protective gear, his locks, his cranium, and infiltrating his brain directly.

Exposed to her manipulations, countless rightful and warranted terrors awaited this vile person at Crinis' whim. Nightmarish glimpses of a warped existence, companions morphing into grotesque, treacherous monsters, her master elevated to the radiant, divine figure he truly embodied.

Regrettably, restrictions prevented her from delivering the psychological agony she yearned to unleash, forcing her to get creative.

Under her sway, the fighter whirled around chaotically before dropping his gear and charging at his closest comrade. Bewildered by the sudden turn, the fellow shouted in panic as his former reliable partner tackled him to the earth and then aimed for his boots.

Crinis murmured to herself,

Removing the heavy boots proved tricky, but once freed, nothing could halt Crinis from imposing the peak of harmless agony she could concoct. Her instructions flooded via the Soul-Seeker Cilia straight into her quarry's psyche, an order so sinister and cunning that she beamed with pride at her ingenuity.

Tickle!

Gripped by an irresistible directive, Crinis' prey pressed his digits to the bottom of his comrade's foot and deployed every ounce of his vigor and skill. Initially baffled, the unfortunate warrior, now bootless, could only squirm and flail in resistance, urging his friend to stop, oblivious to how Crinis would never release her hold.

Crinis chortled gleefully.

Her opening quarry now incapacitated, thrashing on the dirt, voicing their agony through shrill wails that surely stemmed from utter hopelessness, Crinis readied herself for the subsequent mark. She possessed a limited number of cilia, just a few dozen, yet with her intricate and versatile intellect, she managed thousands of tentacles effortlessly, guiding each as if it were her sole limb.

Concealed and invisible, from devious vantage points she coiled her extensions around her quarry and attacked, repeatedly.

Every ensnared soul faced the identical hex, the same penalty.

Tickle! They had to tickle!

With ferocious delight, Crinis sowed disorder across the lines, pitting fellow fighters against one another. She reveled in the stunned expressions of disloyalty that flickered in their gazes, and guffawed as droplets of anguish and grief streamed down their faces.

It was the bare minimum they merited, yet the boundary of what she could impose. For now, Crinis would settle for this.

This, along with vast quantities of Curse Magic.