Mind Demon's Path of Domination

Bale and Reema kept their eyes closed, ready for the battle to begin.

The pilot warned, "We will reach the center of the mega-dungeon in around two more hours. We will enter the Forest of Death in an hour."

Yuri rubbed her nose. Unlike her usual scientist robes, she was in a more comfortable black jersey today—it wouldn\'t tear easily even with friction. She was ready for combat, but she couldn\'t help but wonder where Mark must be.

Was he also on the way?

Bale and Reema had restricted Mark from coming but Yuri knew better. He would come. He had wanted to benefit from this more than anyone.

***

Mark (in Hailen\'s form) descended from the air, landing on the wet ground of the forest. He had a calm expression on his face and his wings were spread widely. Even though it was morning now, it felt as if it was night due to the canopies of all the trees in this forest.

Forest of Death. A forest that killed any human, Hunter or not, that dared enter it without caution. This place had so many demons inside it, Mark\'s soul sense could feel the threat to his life just by breathing—but the demons won\'t come to hurt him unless he went and forced them to.

"There are not many Tier 2 Demons in here," said Reol\'ran.

"Indeed." He nodded.

There were some Tier 2 Demons in the mega-dungeon that were not completely under the control of the Boss. Only the demons in this periphery was an issue in all honest terms and even they wouldn\'t certainly go help the Boss.

Most demons worked in a simple manner. Their survival instincts ruled them. Even Dona had been a similar case even though she was a more complex creature than that at this point.

Usually, only Demons of Tier 3 and above had true sentience according to Reol\'ran,

"Reol\'ran, you said something about the World Apocalypse Destiny," He said. "Explain it to me."

She nodded from within his Soul Space—thoughtfully. Mark walked deeper into the Forest.

"When a world meets a threat that could endanger its life—a demon invasion for example—the World Will begins to get anxious. It is like the immune system of a human body becoming anxious upon the entry of foreign microorganisms.

"And then, the World Will starts to react and protect itself. Majorly, it will select native creatures to act as its shield and bless them with powers it normally wouldn\'t give out—for example, the Hunter World Will created Hunters to save itself from the demon invasion."

"Yeah, even though the Hunters didn\'t cut it."

"Let me explain fully, Mark. Don\'t interrupt."

He nodded.

"Sometimes, the World Will chooses only one individual alone to bless all possible powers on to save itself. It would shower all its resources on that person and make them the strongest of their verse. They are generally called the Destined One.

"I think, Seo Jin Hu was a Destined One. If you had not come to destroy Seo Jin Hu using the means that you did, he had the potential to save this world from demons. He was the favoured son of the Hunter World. But you killed him!"

Mark blinked.

"I am pretty sure that is the case," she said. "Because, you weren\'t acting like yourselves when you had to fight against Shiden, Seo Jin Hu by proxy."

She explained her logic. When Mark had to choose one demon to use as material to turn Seo Ran Hun into a Hunter, he chose Vine Demon instead of the minotaur. That would have been fine if his goal then wasn\'t to get an attack-type ability that could help him win against Shiden in combat, but that was his goal.

It was as if his thoughts suddenly went haywire! No one noticed it, but as someone who had been watching Mark for a while, she could tell something was amiss right then.

"You chose a worse option for that short term goal, don\'t you understand? Someone manipulated your choices to favor Shiden and Seo Jin Hu!"

Mark grew thoughtful.

"This happens when a destined one is involved. The World Will can\'t sense you, but all over the world, it has an influence. It could subtly affect and manipulate your mind. In my opinion, when you chose that Vine Demon, you were under its influence."

Mark breathed in sharply. He hadn\'t even noticed that, he still thought that was a good choice.

"So you are thinking that Hanmo reappearing could be another destined one that the World Will recreated?"

Wouldn\'t he have to be catious of mind games then? Now, he had Reol\'ran to cover his back at least.

He finally understood the fear of an enemy who could mess with his minds. How terrific that was.

Reol\'ran scratched her cheek. "I am not sure. It could be that Hanmo is just another Hunter shapeshifted as him or something along the lines of a puppet—that would clarify why you couldn\'t sense its stats. After all, a puppet could just be a tool with no stats or life to mention about it."

"Hm, it will be clear once the battle begins. If he uses Hanmo\'s abilities, we can be sure that something amiss is going on with him that we must know. If he is a fake, that would also be revealed."

"Our plan is more important than Hanmo\'s mystery," Mark said. "But we might as well focus on it a tiny bit so that our idiocy doesn\'t ebd up biting our ass."

He had a plan today. It was simple, really. Once the Hunters all started fighting and the Boss is at the end of its ropes, Mark planned to intervene in the battle.

He would not be able to use Heart Input on demons who were of an higher tier than himself because of the Mental Resistance that demons have, but Hunters didn\'t have Mental Resistance.

He would use Heart Input on the Masked Woman with the ability to make anyone tell the truth at a critical moment and make her ask the Boss Demon for its True Name. Nobody in the Hunter World knew about the existence of demonic True Names. Or else, they would have realized how stupidly overpowered the Masked Woman\'s ability was.

She could ask any Demon for their True Name and they will be forced to tell it.

Mark planned to use her well today. He just had to make sure he handled everything subtly and clearly—then, the Boss would be his slave. If the Boss had someone with actual human-level intelligence telling it what to do, the Hunters wouldn\'t stand a chance.

"The mega-dungeon is so vast," he said. "I wonder where the Boss hid the Core of the Dungeon."

"Well, finding a needle hidden in a haystack would be easier than finding the core hidden in a country-wide dungeon. It might have even thrown the core into a sea inside the place."

"Well, the Maked Woman could ask the boss where the core is, too. I don\'t think she didn\'t think of it like that."

"That\'s impossible for her to do on her own," said Reol\'ran calmly. "She can\'t speak the demon language like you can. You can speak every language in this world because you got blessed with that by the Demon World\'s Will but not everyone is like you and me."

"True," He laughed.