When Lily realized what had happened, she also realized the fact that she had messed up with the wrong man. No artifact was worth this trouble.
"You…. You … cough… knew we were coming. You baited us."
Lily said in a weak voice. One of the assassin class' weaknesses was most of her camouflage spells couldn't get cast until she lost any physical contact with the other ranker. Her physical stats weren't strong enough to battle with Tuan. Plus, the battle with Tuan's animated snakes wasn't exactly a breeze for her either. That battle had already taken a toll on her.
With that threat of getting kicked out of competition or life looming over her head, Lily decided to make a deal with the devil.
"Sp… spare us. We won't bother you again. Cough… I'm sure you wouldn't want anything to do with us. But I'll say it anyway. If you want, we can still help clear any big monster nest… cough…."
Tuan tightened the grip around Lily some more before speaking up.
"I don't need your help. I only need the Titus points you collected so far."
Saying this, Tuan looked into Lily's eyes coldly. But before he could get his hands on her wristband, he felt something dangerous coming for him.
Wilder had lost himself to his rage once again. This time it was disastrous for both him and his competitor. Because this time, the barbarian didn't even have a shred of control over himself.
Wilder was prone to feats of anger and rage because of his class. And getting played by Tuan like this certainly didn't sit well with him. Add to that the effects of the sonic bullets fired at him by his own raid partner and his new injuries that piled on his previous ones. The result of this cocktail of emotions brewed by such events could only end up making him angrier than he ever was.
Tuan saw the lost-in-barbarian-rage Wilder up close when he approached him again. The barbarian's stature as well as the muscle mass of his body had enlarged due to his rage state. His skin had become red and flaky like that of a reptile. All of his physical stats had been boosted to another level.
"Wilder… no…. Cough… run, Tuan. He might kill us both before dying himself later."
Lily remembered Wilder discussing his class attributes along with his own experiences. Lily and Ketsu had both been warned about something like this. He told them that they should prioritize their safety and leave the fights they were in, in case this happens.
Tuan's first instinct after seeing Wilder's condition was to throw Lily at him before bolting from the scene along with Katalina.
But then something in his head told him to hold his ground. He did not see the need to be afraid of someone unable to control their emotions and bodies by losing themselves in a fit of rage.
This was something coming from the deepest layer of the butcher's consciousness.
Tuan also felt that if he acted on his first instinct and ran away from the scene, he might get away from Wilder. He would also be able to maintain his distance from him using various means. But he would lose an opportunity to have something much more precious than the tournament's reward.
So he decided to stay. He looked at the approaching opponent with nonchalance. With eyes that didn't have any hint of fear or doubts about himself.
Ohm!
Tuan suddenly felt like he was listening to white noise without stepping into a stagnant world. The world around him started exploding with colors. The world came alive in his head and started telling him things about itself he didn't know it had or knew about.
Another sign of soul sense awakening was manifested at the time.
This time, Tuan didn't feel like he had lost control over his body. It was more akin to him gaining unlimited sets of limbs that kept getting stretched in every possible direction.
Then he felt some obstructions while feeling the world around him. There were a few objects or beings that he couldn't perceive with his newfound sense easily. Therefore, he used his soul sense to forcefully breach all the restrictions which held him back. Subconsciously, he only wanted to know about those things that were trying to remain a mystery.
This "something" was Wilder and all the other rankers around him. Lily wasn't spared by Tuan's immature soul sense either.
After being hit by Tuan's soul sense, Wilder lost all his anger in one go. It was then replaced by fear and survival instinct.
"Aaaaaaaaah… stay… stay away… I…. I am sorry."
Wilder's wilderness was zapped away when he was pulled out of his rage state. He quickly regained his composure before getting down on his knees just a few meters away from Tuan.
Wilder didn't want to stay there of course. But he had lost control over all his limbs. It was as if his soul was finding it difficult to control its natal vessel because of the interference from a foreign soul which was more powerful.
Lily had it much more difficult. She lost control of her consciousness and fainted after being affected by Tuan's soul sense. Her eyeballs were moving inside her shut eyelids, a testament to her suffering from some sort of shock. Possibly nightmares.
Katalina and Ketsu were also affected by Tuan's soul sense since they too were within its range. Katalina wasn't negatively affected by the soul sense since his hostility wasn't directed at her. But she felt like she was being read like an open book by the soul sense.
Ketsu had it much better than his raid partners. He was already suffering while lying on the ground because of Wilder's attack. So when the soul sense hit him, he only felt irrational fear towards Tuan apart from losing control over his mana circuits that were already overburdened, to begin with. He also felt uncontrollable rage towards Lily and Wilder.
It was apparent that Tuan's soul sense was carrying residual effects of his Sins series abilities. But since he had done it subconsciously, he wasn't in control of its effects.
Tuan could also subconsciously realize that these weren't activations of his abilities. But more like imprinting other existences with his own marks of Sins. His own definition of Sins. Of course, these marks didn't replicate the original effects completely and couldn't be called permanent. But those effects were substantial in their intensity for the time being.
**********************
Team Lily's resistance was abruptly destroyed by Tuan's soul sense manifesting all of a sudden. Even Kat took a while to realize that she didn't have to fight anymore. She had also been affected by Tuan's soul sense. But unlike Lily's team, her emotions weren't altered.
"What... what did you do?"
With a voice coated in vigilance, the wind-element ranker appeared beside her raid partner. Her eyes looked at him and everything around them with caution as she did that.
Tuan's second sign of the soul sense awakening was brief as well. This time, he wasn't as stunned or surprised after it was finished as in his previous incident. He let go of Lily's neck, making her fall to the ground like a corpse getting dropped. He then dusted his hands before responding to Kat's question nonchalantly.
"Nothing really. Let's just say that these pests were taught a lesson by me."
