Tales of the Legendary Magus

Chapter 195: Changing One's Beliefs

Since Villin knew that nobody was controlling the mind currently and he was only going up against the mind's natural instinct to protect itself, he decided to take his time. The wall in the previous region of defenses wouldn't repair itself without himself or Ashera making it so.

"Now, what to do here"

Even though Villin had already made a plan before going on this trip, he was getting a bunch of different thoughts and creating different plans while he was actually there trying to attack. He decided that if he got out without a problem, he could attack his mind again in the future to find potential weaknesses.

The initial plan was to create a blimp. The stone soldiers wouldn't attack him which only leaves behind the stone wyverns. Since the mind was purely going off of instinct it wouldn't realize the blimp was the real threat and the wyverns should all go for Villin instead of the balloon.

But now that he was here, he didn't like that plan so much anymore. He would be going extremely slow and due to the heat of the lava, it was possible he would lose control at some point. And then there were still the stone soldier and enchanted wall after he landed. Even though the stone soldiers here weren't so strong, Villin wasn't confident he could take them all on by his own while trying to blow through the wall.

After a bit, he found something he could do though.

"What an oversight." Villin clacked his tongue as he formed a plan, it was only now that he realized a massive weakness in the defense of this section.

The carriage was gone and the magic power had formed various objects. Standing in a line were ten puppets, each of them had massive enchanted spears in their hands, they loaded it into the large Atlantian spearguns at the same time.

Since he was very familiar with the enchantments and materials, Villin didn't have any problem bringing these weapons into his mind.

"Attach the chains!" Villin bellowed much like a commander as his puppets performed the task. Even though they didn't have any intelligence and Villin was controlling him, he still felt like doing it.

Each of the puppets grabbed an extremely large chain and attached it to the loaded spears. The spears currently loaded weren't the explosive ones, they were simple sharpened spears with quite a lot of durability. Once all the chains were attached Villin once more bellowed, "FIRE!"

Ten spears flew forward to the other side of the canyon, eight of them hit their targets, each of them hitting one of the wyverns right on while the other two spears fell short.

Villin grinned as he watched eight wyverns falling down, while the others remained unmoving.

Since Villin still hadn't come onto or above the bridge, the wyverns still remained in their locations.

"Pull back!"

After these words, the puppets pulled a lever attached to the speargun, and the chains got pulled back, as did the spears. Soon, the ten spears were back onto the spearguns. Since he didn't lose any spears or anything of the like, this volley cost practically no magic power to shoot.

The puppets quickly cleaned the top of the spears to make sure there were no rocks hanging on them before loading and shooting them again, and again.

Volley after volley was shot out as stone wyverns were being slaughtered. Occasionally one of the chains would snap losing them a spear and the magic power it contained but overall, this had been extremely cheap.

After doing this for a couple of hours, practically all of the visible wyverns and about half of the stone soldiers had been destroyed.

As Villin raised his hand, each of the puppets loaded the chained spears once more. But, before shooting, they moved their heavy spearguns with Villin's help, so that they all stood right next to each other.

Then, they once more pointed to the other side, but this time, they weren't aiming at any wyvern or stone soldier, but instead a large rock across from them. They all shot at the same time and the spears got deep into the rock before getting stuck.

"Alright, that'll do, unhood the chains from the spears and hook them to the metal pins in the ground," Villin commanded, and soon, each of the chains were disconnected from the spears and connected to metal pins that had been hammered into the ground.

The ten chains now made a path together, one that Villin would be able to cross without too many problems.

After rearranging the metal pins a little bit, the path became smaller but more stable, this would allow the puppets to cross as well.

After having some puppets test the bridge, there were no problems and it seemed safe.

Now the only real threat were the wyverns hidden behind the wall, they were only supposed to come out when enemies have crossed the bridge and reached the other side. When they thought they made it, these wyverns would surprise-attack them.

"Load the explosives!" 

The puppets who were back at the spearguns at this point in time, each grabbed a spear from the smile pile next to them and loaded it, then they all pointed it at a certain section of the enchanted wall. 

"Fire!" 

Ten spears shot out and ten explosions occurred, when the smoke cleared Villin noticed clear cracks in the wall and its enchantments. Two volleys later, a large hole had been made into the side of the wall."

Villin smiled as he saw the effectiveness but got slightly worried as well. Even though generally Villin himself or Ashera would be able to defend the mind and the wyverns and soldiers wouldn't be so inflexible, Villin would still like it if the defenses were passively airtight. He would have to make some adjustments later for sure.

Since the hole was big enough, Villin had the spearguns and remaining ammo turn into puppets before they started crossing to the other side using the chains. The puppets weren't affected by heat and didn't have any problems crossing. Once some did cross though, wyverns came in from behind the walls.

Still, since they were attacking puppets they weren't a threat. Puppets would kill a few using their strength or fire-breath before self-destructing taking a bunch with them. After about twenty puppets exploded, the way was clear.

To Villin, crossing the chasm was quite difficult since he had to deal with the heat and all that. Thankfully, without the added instability of the wooden bridge and the fighting with the stone soldiers and wyverns, he managed to cross without too much trouble.

Once he got through the hold in the enchanted wall, Villin once more found himself within the mind, the second layer this time. He noticed Ashera not too far away and he also noticed two clusters holding different beliefs.

Looking into the one on the left he noticed seemingly random points in his life. It included the times he gave a hobo some money and the times he played with his dog. Other than this, it also included the final moment of his previous life when he tried to help an old lady. It surprisingly was even connected to a couple of songs such as 'Savages' and 'I'm Only Human'.

The section in the right was different, it was connected to his memories with Ashera, the fact that he knew deep inside he wasn't truly human anymore, not even half-human. He was part magus, part Kitsune.

The belief on the right was also founded on reality, using several strong memories and emotions he had and just enhancing them slightly.

"All you have to do is destroy the belief on the left, and this one will take its place."

Villin couldn't help but smirk since Ashera sounded like a typical Disney villain telling him to lose his humanity. But, he knew what had to be done, and he had already accepted it.

As he willed it, the belief he was human shrank and entered his hand, he then looked away as he crushed it. Even though he was only a mental projection of himself, he swore he could feel a tear rolling down his left cheek. He wasn't sure why it came, but soon it was gone. He saw the belief he was part magus and part Kitsune grow before his eyes, and even though he felt something different mentally, he didn't feel as different as he had thought.

He hadn't quite realized that he had grown a little colder.

After nodding at Ashera, he turned around and began returning. He once more crossed the bridge of chains he made earlier, after that he came through the unenchanted wall in the first line of defense. He came out with a couple of puppets and managed to escape before he got enclosed.

Once he was completely out, his mind saw the threat as averted and when Villin entered again, it let him pass as it usually would. He quickly began repairing some of the essentials he had destroyed and got rid of the chain bridge before meetup up with Ashera again. It was time to reclaim his body.