Chapter 727 Psychic Toxin
There were four Beyond Grade A Supers that everyone knew about. For (Tyrant] Heber, (Dragon Emperor] Ames, [Magus] Austin, Han Xiao had met or even communicated with the three of them at some point. But for the final Beyond Grade A, the (Star Pupil] Psyker, he had never even seen the guy.
Psyker’s territory was located at the very edge of the Shattered Star Ring. Han Xiao had once attended a party of overlords, but only Psyker did not show up.
Psyker was born in a Star System level Civilization and was the Supreme Leader of that very Civilization. He had led his tribe and compatriots to develop silently in their own territory.
Could it be that this guy has also sided with the Crimson Dynasty?
Inside his Mechanical suit, Han Xiao’s expression was dark.
In Version 3.0 of his previous life, Psyker did not get involved in this secret war. He could only attribute this current situation to his influence on the events in this life.
While he had never seen Psyker, Han Xiao could still remember his data.
Psyker was not a humanoid creature. It was said that he had achieved atavism, and his genes could be traced to one of the deities in the Arcane Church. He possessed a high spiritual talent and possessed the abilities of Psychic Activation as well as Psychic Realization.
The attack that he had taken was only a Psychic attack from Psyker that was stored by some means and not from the main body, so the damage was not high. The headache inducing part was the array of negative statuses with an unknown duration.
Han Xiao himself was unsure if this sneak attack was intended by Psyker or if the enemy had managed to obtain the item from certain channels, with Psyker being unaware.
After these thoughts flashed through Han Xiao’s mind, he suddenly found that he no longer had any energy to continue thinking. The negative statuses had begun to play their role, and his brain was suddenly filled with chatter, as though there were countless people murmuring within his head.
His vision began to overlap, as though mirrors were placed in random positions all around the place, giving birth to illusions. A sense of weakness began to appear from the depths of his spirit, as though he was suffering from mental exhaustion but unable to fall asleep.
Now that the guys from Bloodshed Land know that any Calamity Grade cannot threaten me, they’ve started to use Beyond Grade A attacks against me...
Strongly suppressing the chaos in his mind, Han Xiao gritted his teeth and waved his hand, and his Mechanical army acted according to the established order, strengthening their offense against Hadavy. At the same time, they rushed like a huge mechanical wave toward the battlefield, smashing apart enemy warships and speeding up their advance.
Han Xiao did not care about the command to delay the battle any longer and prepared to rush down to take over the Hyperdrive Base Station as soon as possible and end the battle so that he could return and take care of this negative state.
Hadavy was a little stunned. The white light before was a Psychic attack, and without any outward appearance of any damage done, he did not know if Han Xiao had suffered any sort of attack at all.
Even a Beyond Grade A seed such as him could not tell, let alone everyone else on the battlefield. Only Han Xiao himself knew what exactly had happened to him.
“Jorde, what sort of thing was that?”
Hadavy’s expression was ugly. He hated using underhanded methods the most.
“This is a secret.” Jorde was dissatisfied with Hadavy and could not be bothered to explain further. Besides, Hadavy was only a cooperative partner, not loyal to Bloodshed Land. He did not take Hadavy as someone whom he could trust.
Hadavy suppressed his flames of anger, and while dealing with the concentrated firepower of the Mechanical army, he observed Han Xiao before saying, “He seems to be unaffected. What sort of damage did that white light do?”
Jorde only coldly laughed, not deigning to reply.
After exchanging blows for a decade, the intelligence collected by Bloodshed Land on Han Xiao was not little at all. Compared with his strong physical vitality, Black Star was considered weak to mental attacks. This could not be concealed, and most forces had guessed that. However, Han Xiao was only considered relatively weak in this regard; it was not his Achilles’ heel. Because his life force was so strong, ordinary Grade A Psychics or Mages were unable to exchange blows with him.
However, if the attacker was a Beyond Grade A psychic, then things would be different.
The attack was derived from Psyker’s psychic toxin, which was something that Jorde had spent a lot of effort to obtain. His inspiration came from the EsGod doppelganger that DarkStar had summoned seven years ago, with the purpose of weakening Han Xiao.
This was because the Tyrant was initially hoping for Han Xiao to reach the Beyond A Grade so that he could make an appearance and kill him to improve his reputation. Thus, Jorde had taken Heber’s orders as his life, not utilizing this toxin whilst waiting for him to improve.
However, not long ago, the Tyrant had personally accessed the situation and told him that it was almost impossible for Black Star to have a breakthrough in the next two to three years to become a Beyond Grade A Super. The Tyrant’s plans had fallen through, and thus, Jorde thought that there was no need to let Black Star go, contrary to Heber’s intentions.
Since Black Star was unable to advance, the Tyrant would have no way to interfere in the war based on the rules set, so Jorde decided to use Psyker’s psychic toxin to weaken Black Star and reduce his strength, removing the pressure of an advanced combatant.
This mentality was equivalent to originally thinking of holding a stock with great potential, yet suddenly seeing the growth of the stock stagnate or even begin to plummet and deciding to quickly sell the stock to cut his losses.
Psyker’s toxin was extremely insidious, and no hint of the source could be seen. Jorde estimated that Black Star would probably not even know of Psyker’s name.
“Your mission is already complete. Find a chance to retreat.” Jorde regained his composure, throwing out this sentence before cutting the communication.
He was very satisfied with the results this time.
Hadavy remained silent. Only he was left in the call, and he no longer asked nor grumbled about what Black Star was inflicted with. He was suddenly enveloped with a sense of loneliness and resignation.
Hadavy weaved left and right in the battlefield, utilizing the Bloodshed Land’s fleet as a protective shield as well as his indestructible body, forcefully extricating himself from the siege of the mechanical army. He then stole a spaceship and quickly fled using hyperdrive.
Han Xiao had long been accustomed to his escapes, and knowing that he could not give chase with his current strength, he recalled the Mechanical army and turned back to deal with the other enemy Calamity Grades.
The Everlasting had also entered the battlefield, its crystals emitting psionic annihilation beams continuously destroying and annihilating all the spaceships passing by its crosshairs, leaving a line of blank space on the battlefield.
Faced with the unstoppable advancement of Section Zero, the Bloodshed Land changed its strategy, no longer resisting desperately. They began to withdraw whilst fighting, and seeing that the Hyperdrive Base Station was about to fall to the enemy, they decisively blew it up, cutting off their links to their various planetary bases and preventing Section Zero from reaching them.
After losing the fast wormhole passage, the rest of the planetary bases also became independent, and the fleets from each planet started to evacuate, abandoning the Kant Star System to preserve their strength.
It did not take long for all the troops from Bloodshed Land to evacuate. Section Zero had achieved a massive success in their counterattack, expelling all enemy forces in the Kant Star System.
Bloodshed Land’s number of Star Systems reduced from five to four, which also meant that the situation in the Kant Star System was not stable. If it was the West Wind, Kaya, or Chaida Star Systems, which had been occupied for a long time, it would not be so easy to repel them. Even so, this was a great victory, and Section Zero’s morale was boosted. The Purple Crystal Civilization was also overjoyed when they received this intelligence.
The rewards for the players’ missions were also settled, and the victory result improved their mission evaluations and increased the total reward.
On a random planet that had been occupied by Section Zero, black smoke rolled, and the ground was filled with burnt corpses. Groups of soldiers combed through the battlefield to collect any loot.
There were many players in the battlefield cleaning teams, picking up loot as though they were picking up trash.
“Our harvest this time is not bad. If we convert all this broken equipment into materials, we should be able to sell them for one or two thousand Enas.”
Frenzied Sword picked up a high-tech mechanical war hammer, throwing it into the loot box as he spoke with a happy expression.
The Rivervale team was in the area collecting war loot and idly chatting in twos or threes.
The Vice Team Leader, Evil Sword, picked up a broken blaster, pursing his lips before tossing it aside, as he casually asked, “Leader, how much experience do you have now?”
“Let me see...” Frenzied Sword glanced at his interface. “I’m almost ready to advance.”
Because the professional players had to take part in the Pro League at the end of Version 2.0, they did not save up much experience. Thus, at the beginning of the version, their levels were not the highest, and a majority of them had not reached the level 100 mark to undergo their promotion.
“You’re levelling up very quickly!” Evil Sword was envious. “I’m still lacking quite a bit.”
“I killed more enemies than you and got a higher mission rating, so of course, you haven’t leveled up as quickly as me.” Frenzied Sword smirked.
Evil Sword twisted his mouth. “Forget it, I won’t rush to promote together with you. I’d rather spend my experience on learning more High-End Knowledge. I’ll suppress my grade for the time being.”
“Why would you want to suppress your grade? You can probably promote to Grade B right after you reach level 100.”
“Who knows? Maybe there will be an experience penalty for killing Grade Cs after reaching Grade B. Anyways, with you as our guinea pig, it’s better for me to just wait for a while.” Evil Sword grinned.
“Up to you, you wimp. After all, you’ll need to promote sooner or later.” Frenzied Sword rolled his eyes in response.
On the other side of the battlefield, Hate the Heavens was also sweeping the battlefield with a few of his friends, idly chatting.
“This battle is finally over. After this, we’ll find some time to proceed toward another Star System to participate in another war mission,” Hate the Heavens suggested.
While they were involved in a war, there was no chance to defect to the enemy camp. Now that the war mission had ended, they were free to move around, and Hate the Heavens had decided to take the opportunity to move by themselves.
“But the fifty-percent discount seems to be ongoing. I feel that we should enjoy the last wave of benefits before we change to another faction. We should first return to the Black Star Army headquarters, spend all of our benefits, and then join Bloodshed Land,” one of them said.
Hate the Heavens nodded in response. “That works too.”
“It’s just that our main storyline will have to first be removed and changed to the Klent faction main storyline,” one of them said regretfully.
“There’s no way around it.” Hate the Heavens shook his head. “But we at least managed to obtain the reward from this campaign. We should not be considered to have lost out. Compared to the hidden storyline of the Klent faction, this sort of loss is nothing.”
Everyone else nodded in agreement.
At the same time, in yet another stronghold, Summer Night Flower was considering the same problem.
“After this mission ends, there should be people who go and join Klent. At that time, I’ll be able to prove my hypothesis, that the Klent faction is the best choice.” Summer Night Flower sighed to himself. He believed in his conjecture and was full of expectations toward changing factions.
...
The majority of the forces were cleaning up the battlefield, so Han Xiao allowed Herlous and the other officers to deal with that while he closed himself up inside the training room.
In the room, Han Xiao’s face was pale, and his eyes closed as he tried to gather strength to sense his body’s condition. It was only after a long time that he reopened his eyes, his expression grave.
The problem was quite thorny.
[Poisoned Soul] would keep him in a permanent status of Mental Weakness that reduced all his attributes by twenty percent. In addition, his stamina and energy would fall fifteen percent faster than normal, meaning that he would require more effort to use the same skill.
[Sensory Misdirection) reduced his hit rate, critical rate, and evasion.
[Mild Hallucination] targeted his mental state, constantly harassing it with weird voices, making it difficult for him to maintain a calm and rational state.
The (Schizophrenia) status was the most dangerous, as it produced a sub-personality within him. It was linked with the [Parasitic Mind) status, where the mental toxins would parasitize his spirit, consuming part of the energy he used each time to nourish the weaker sub-personality. This would strengthen it, to the point that it would compete with the main personality for control of the body.
If the control over his body was robbed, his interface would show that he had entered the [Chaos] status and would run rampant, not recognizing friend or foe.
However, Han Xiao knew that the actual effect would be more complicated, not as simple as stopping at the (Chaos] status.
Psyker... sigh, I really hate this Psychic...
Han Xiao rubbed his temples while frowning. Right now, the sub personality was still weak, and he could not detect its presence. However, every time he moved to attack, the sub personality would also grow in strength.
Could it be that the objective of Bloodshed Land is to restrict my movements, making me afraid to fight?
Han Xiao helplessly shook his head. Toward a psychic attack made by a Beyond Grade A Psychic, even if he was prepared for it, the attack would still land.
It seemed as though he had to let go of whatever he had currently and think of an idea to resolve his negative statuses...
Han Xiao sighed.
The duration of the negative status is not written. Thus, I can assume that it will not go away on its own. How should I go about resolving this?
Enduring the mental fatigue, Han Xiao thought silently.
The easiest method would be to request His Majesty Psyker for aid. However, he was unsure whether Psyker was a friend or foe and would not throw himself into their grasp for nothing.
The second method would be to ask Austin for help. This plan could be considered.
The information on the interface was not comprehensive enough, and Han Xiao wished to examine the nature of the toxin in detail. However, he was more suited for dealing with material items and was unable to sense his mental state. Thus, he could only invite Lagi and Feidin over.
“You were hit by the sneak attack from a Beyond Grade A Psychic?”
When Feidin and Lagi came into the room and heard the explanation from Han Xiao, both of them jumped in shock.
Han Xiao rubbed his eyebrows and sighed. “It was impossible to avoid, and I didn’t expect to encounter Psyker either. Feidin, please check and see how bad my situation is.”
Feidin turned solemn and stretched out his hands, pressing behind Han Xiao’s ears as he closed his eyes. His mental power began to seep into Han Xiao’s brain.
Han Xiao could feel Feidin’s mental energy seep in like tentacles.
Hum!
Suddenly, the vision in front of his eyes turned illusory, and it displayed the vision in his mental state, as shared by Feidin.
His mental territory was a blank world. Both him and Feidin existed in the form of spiritual bodies and light particles, overlooking the entire area.
About ten percent of the area was filled with purplish black mist. From time to time, it attempted to condense into a human figure but met failure.
“This is the psychic toxin that has taken root and parasitized your mental territory.” Feidin’s tone was grave. “Not only will it continue to absorb your strength and expand by itself, the moment it reaches approximately thirty percent of your territory, the sub personality will be born, and it will begin to fight with you for control over the body.”
Han Xiao’s expression was ugly. “Can you clear all the psychic toxins?”
Feidin helplessly shook his head in return. “This is a psychic power belonging to a Beyond Grade A Super. Its power is tyrannical and hard to remove. Even my own psychic strength will be swallowed by it and turned into its nutrients. Sorry...”
At this time, Lagi’s spiritual body also squeezed in, appearing beside the two. One look at the scene, and he patted Han Xiao’s shoulder immediately.
“You have no hope left. Just hand the position of Army Commander to me. I’ll continue your work.”
“Thanks a lot, man,” Han Xiao replied sarcastically.