Anna was standing in front of the struggling Superior Demon.
"Haa… Ha…" Anna fell to her knees. The pain jolted her body before going straight to her mind. The pain felt like she was being shredded apart from the inside. If not for her previous life experience, she would have screamed in pain.
Still, when she looked to the front, she realized that the Superior Demon was about to die.
Anna took a deep breath to maintain her calm. Her power was depleted and her horns had disappeared.
However, the moment the earthworm faced its mouth at her, the berserker's instinct warned her of the danger.
"!!!" Anna widened her eyes in shock. She felt the danger coming from multiple sources. In fact, there were too many sources that she wondered if this was a real threat or not.
But when she took another look at the earthworm, she realized what kind of danger she would be facing.
'The teeth? Don't tell me, it can release its teeth? No, it's going to shoot those teeth for his last attack.' Anna realized what was going on. Her face became pale.
She tried to circulate the red lightning, but the Spiritual Energy from her body was already too depleted that she could only cover her upper body with the red lightning.
"I…" Anna tried to raise her sword, but her hand had become too weak. Due to the side effects of using the True Spirit Body, the damage on the nerves had prevented her from raising her blade.
"No way!" Anna gritted her teeth. She could hear Noel screaming, "NOOO!" as he was trying to rescue her.
However, it was too late. Before he could reach her, the earthworm had shot out the teeth and impaled her body with all the teeth.
Anna couldn't do anything as her entire body was being ripped apart by the teeth. That was when she died.
Or so what happened until Noel woke up from his dream.
"NOOO!" Noel screamed as his body shook.
"What's wrong?" Anna's voice suddenly echoed from the side, making Noel turn his head.
"Huh?" Noel was confused. He looked around and realized that he was on Old Ru's back as they were on the way back from the tunnel. "Did we…"
Old Ru maintained his silence while Anna smiled at him. "We have completed the task, which is to clear the nest. The Superior Demon has been defeated, along with the remaining demons that enter the cave after that. Though, Old Ru was the one to eliminate them."
"…" Noel glanced to the side and asked Ardagan to open the system missions.
[Mission: Testing New Power. (Complete)]
[Description: Eliminate all demons in the lair.]
[Reward: Empowerment Rune.]
[Mission: Superior Demon! (Complete)]
[Description: Kill the Superior Demon.]
[Reward: Force Control]
[Mission: Time Attack! (Complete)]
[Description: Clear the whole nest within 24 hours. (0 Monsters Remaining)]
[Reward: Challenger Medal and Secret to Career Advancement.]
As she said, the missions were completed. However, it still felt surreal, especially after that dream. He never thought that he would dream about Anna getting killed by the worm's last struggle.
If not for him choosing the shortest path to land on the ground and blocking the teeth, it would have been bad.
It seemed that Anna had pulled out the teeth and fed him the pill the Sword Saint had. In the past, the Sword Saint gave him the pill made of the soul of a Spirit King Level Expert. He said it had the power to let anyone recover from their wounds as long as they didn't die. It appeared the Sword Saint told him the truth since that pill truly saved him.
He was given three pills, which he brought with him all the time. However, he never had the chance to use it because he deemed the situation wasn't needed. It was also his trump card.
Although his stamina hadn't recovered, he could feel that his body was perfectly fine. He would be fine after a good rest.
Meanwhile, his focus shifted back to Anna.
"Are you alright?" Noel asked. His face was filled with concern.
"Of course, I'm alright. Who do you think you're talking to?" Anna made a proud look.
However, Noel only stared at him with concern, causing her to feel guilty for putting on that tough front.
"…" Anna scratched the back of her head and sighed.
"Well, if she didn't want to say it, I will be the one telling you." Old Ru finally broke his silence. "You should know about the side effects of using the True Spirit Body. The Spirit Link will be damaged and any power coming from your spirit will be reduced significantly until you repair the Spirit Link."
"In her case, her Spirit Link might recover, but her own veins are not. I believe she has sustained a huge injury in the past. And that injury came during her time using the True Spirit Body."
"You should know that the Spirit Link is entangled with the body's veins. So, once the Spirit Link is damaged, the veins will experience the same thing."
"While you can repair the Spirit Link with the help of the Spirit, your own veins are different. If it's a normal vein, it shouldn't be much of a problem since someone with a Healing Spirit can solve that problem."
"But once the veins are fused with the Spirit Link, the only way to do it is to let it recover for a long period of time. Unfortunately, it hasn't been long since the previous injury, so the veins get more injuries before they can recover."
"Right now, she should be experiencing massive pains all over her body, especially the place on her Spirit Link. She should feel lucky that she didn't receive any big injuries this time around or her veins might collapse and her life would be in danger."
"That's…" Noel sucked a cold breath. "Is there any method of treatment?"
"There are two ways that I know."
"What are they?" Noel's eyes brightened.
"The first method is to become a Spirit Grandmaster. Once you reach the Spirit Grandmaster, you will form the Spirit Mind. The mind will be able to control the Spiritual Energy within your body to aid the recovery. She should be able to fully recover with just one month of recuperation."
"As for the second method, it's to control her energy from the outside. However, I can't perform that method… The only person I know who can do it is my grandson's late father… who had passed away due to conflict."
"…" Noel fell silent before asking, "What do you mean by controlling her energy from the outside?"
"Literally. You take over her flow of energy and use it to aid the repair of her veins."
"Taking over someone's flow of energy?" Noel widened her eyes in shock. "Is such a thing possible?"
Anna suddenly remembered something. "Now that I think about it… There is someone who can use that ability."
"There is someone like that in your human territory?" Old Ru asked.
"No… It comes from the same bloodline as the person you mentioned earlier."
Old Ru suddenly fell silent before understanding who she mentioned. Yes, it would be his adopted grandson.
"Impossible. I have heard from the person who created it that he hasn't taught anyone about that ability."
"But…" Anna recalled what had happened in her previous life. "The ability could allow the user to control someone's energy, right? While the other person can use their own Spiritual Energy to resist the control, it will be extremely useful for other areas such as healing, poison, and other things. I mean, you can guide the energy to contain the poison and even remove it."
Old Ru gasped. The fact that Anna could describe it perfectly meant she was talking about the same thing. Old Ru had predicted that in the previous life, his grandson would be following Noel.
In fact, Noel suddenly became suspicious due to the same reason.
"Wait a minute." Noel's eyebrows twitched. "May I know the name of that ability?"
"Normally, you only know about two types of Control: Hard and Soft. But this one is outside the system, so it's called Force Control."
"…" Noel became speechless. He even made a wry smile, not knowing how to react.
"What?" Old Ru was confused. Unlike Anna's rebirth, he didn't know much about Noel's system.
"By any chance, does that person acquire this control from a record or something?"
"Hmm? How do you know?" Old Ru raised his eyebrows. "If I'm not mistaken, he deciphered an ancient book about this method."
Noel pointed at himself and said, "I think… the one who wrote that book was my ancestor."
"!!!" Old Ru and Anna dropped their jaws to the ground.
Noel wasn't lying. In the past, humans created demi-humans and lived together for a while until the demi-humans were exiled. So, it wouldn't be weird if one of them was related to his ancestor and brought one of his books.
In addition, Ardagan's abilities mostly came from either himself or Ardagan Family's ancestors. So, it wouldn't be weird to connect everything to his ancestor.
"I never practiced it, but I did have the knowledge about Force Control."
Old Ru's heart thumped. Despite knowing that his grandson followed Noel in the previous life, he couldn't deduct the reason. However, it seemed that he finally understood why.
It was clear that he wanted to learn the ability that his parents had. After all, that was the exact reason why his father died. Yes, the conflict came from Force Control.
