It turned out that he didn't need to put in effort to kill the count. So he is full of energy while the bounty hunter just had a dangerous, intensive fight. If they were to fight, he believes he has a higher chance of success than the tired bounty hunter.
Not that they will fight. He doesn't plan for them to fight. But if they do fight, he is confident in his safety. He walked towards the staircase with that confidence evident in his gait.
He met people who tried to stop him. They were two angry-looking heroes. One was a female and the other was a male.
They looked at him in anger and held out their hands to stop him. The man asked sternly, "Who are you?"
He didn't reply. He looked into their eyes for a second. This caused their eyelids to droop. They fell asleep immediately and slumped to the ground. Not even the fact that the lady cracked her head against the wall managed to wake her up.
He walked past their bodies into the elevator like a gentleman. Everyone who tried to stop him simply fell asleep. No one could resist him.
This is just a mild use of his ability. He can do so much more.
Seeing emotions and mental fluctuations is a passive effect of his ability. He can also burn them.
His ability is a psychic class ability called Psychic Spark. He has a spark in his mind that allows him to see the minds of others. It is a source of light in the darkness that is the mental world.
He can use that spark to light his way, and he can also use it to torch the minds he encounters. If done lightly, the target's focus will be drained rapidly, and they will sleep.
The act of sleeping is a protective mechanism of the mind that it engages when it encounters trauma. He is stopping at this point because he doesn't want to get in too much trouble with the heroes.
He is only going out for a stroll. In fact, he is in a good mood currently. The person he wanted to kill is dead, and he has become a few energy stones richer. So he spared their lives.
But if he decides to be brutal, he can set the whole mind of the target ablaze. This will burn their emotions and their memories. This is permanent damage that will make Alzheimer's look like a joke.
His psychic spark will turn the mind of the target catatonic. Things would be so bad that they would forget how to breathe or how to walk.
His ability is clearly dangerous. But it has a major weakness apart from the fact that the psychic fire he creates is slow acting. He doesn't mind that since the psychic fire is also very difficult to put out.
What he does mind and minds very much is the need to look into someone's eyes to torch their minds. It is a weakness that can render his ability completely ineffective.
But as long as he can catch the eyes of a target, they will be at his mercy. Even the Count, who is stronger than him and has the bulk of his power in his Mind attribute, will only be able to prolong the inevitable.
Anyone he traps with his ability will have to do his bidding if they don't want him to incinerate their minds. He will only remove his mind fire when they do what he wants.
His ability is why he has been able to survive on the foreign battlefield and why he has been able to recruit so many talented people for his cabal.
It is clear that he is the brain of the cabal. He was the one that devised the scheme used to test the value of others as potential recruits. Pauli is just the muscle, so to say.
As for their third partner, she is the public relations officer and in charge of their spy network. They are not useless. If they were, he wouldn't have chosen them to be his partners. They would just be his subordinates if they didn't have something even he values.
But he is the brain and the one who comes up with schemes. His scheme has paid off again. Now he might get a powerful new recruit too.
He looked at where the Count's mind trail ended. It was the spot where he died. He could see that without a doubt because he could see the supernova created when the Count's mind finally gave up.
The core of his mind had collapsed while the surface, which usually contains his emotions and thoughts, had scattered into the surroundings.
"So much pain. Did they torture Count before they killed him? But what kind of torture would last less than a minute and cause so much pain?"
He was surprised and intrigued by the amount of pain he saw in the final radiance of the Count's mind. He couldn't believe that a strong man like Count would feel so much pain in such a short amount of time.
"But why would they torture him? This is simply unprofessional. I should ask them when I meet them."
He focused next on the mind trail of the bounty hunter and began following it. He was eager to meet whoever it was that killed the Count and ask them for some much-needed answers.
He walked down the stairs to the first floor. Then he went down to the basement where the incinerator was.
He met a lot of heroes here. They were the ones that the Count had prepared to reinforce him in case of an attack. They had followed the smell of the Count's corpse all the way here.
They were tired and very angry. They were also well informed about Thorin's identity and ability. The Count had told them about it because he suspected that Thorin would be lurking about. So they were able to identify him as soon as he walked through the door.