CHAPTER 98: DREAMTHORN

"Stop!" she shouted, seeing a person turning into shadows.

Harry halted. He knew he couldn’t outrun Gracie in any way...not that he had to.

The mask’s active skill had run out at the last moment, now anyone could sense him with their technique or skills.

Harry felt her gaze upon him, as if scanning his soul.

"What were you doing here?" Gracie asked, her hands checking upon her sword.

"I was here to wander around," Harry chuckled and walked casually away from Gracie.

Gracie could feel his emotions. They felt strained, consciously suppressing them so she couldn’t feel that.

Harry felt a sudden change in the blood he could sense around. Believing in his instinct, he dove down—a sword slashed where his head had been.

The moment he felt the sword, he simultaneously went into the shadows, travelling far in the distance.

Selfishness, warmth, love, no hostility, that’s what Gracie felt in that short burst of encounter.

The only reason for her attack was to distract the man from concealing his emotions, and she was in a strange situation.

The man was selfish, that’s the most important thing in the world to survive. And the warmth and love...she felt those emotions from many people who saw her as a beautiful girl.

But the strange part was—there was no hostility, even after her attacks. Why would he not want to kill her after that attack?

Harry may have revealed himself, but for now, he wanted to keep it as it was. He had to figure out what the deal was with that blue root and how things would turn out.

Gracie had barely thought about all these things when the person vanished before her eyes. She barely saw a shadow jumping far in the distance.

"Shadow?" she pondered for a moment and came back to the group of students.

Things were unorganised, students were helping each other while many were still drowsy from the side effects.

They checked their dantian. Now the blue roots had withered and vanished.

The fight didn’t go without any repulsion. They lost around five hundred students in the battle, while many lost limbs.

But that could be treated with healing element.

"Clear the remains of the tree. Start building back the settlement. I think the absence of beasts had to do with the tree, and now they will get back," Gracie ordered her subordinates.

"At least we won’t have to face tides of beasts every day," Sylas laughed, kicking a branch of the tree.

Harry sat in his room in the settlement. Everyone was busy with the aftermath of the fight, so this part of the settlement was mostly silent.

He brought the blue root out from his beast space. When Gracie approached him, he tried to throw the root into the beast space, which should have been impossible if he considered it alive.

Don’t know why but it worked. If he hadn’t been able to do that, Gracie would have felt the presence of another person or mind. So the beast space worked as a perfect hide.

"So, what are you?" Harry asked, the human-shaped root sitting on his palm.

"Am... Dreamthorn," it said, the head of the root caressing his palm cutely.

"Okay, then I will give you to that girl," Harry stood up, acting as if to leave.

"No... I help you," the root said, changing into a cat and starting to lick his palm.

Harry raised an eyebrow, seeing the transformation.

Harry laughed at this point. "Devious, you have pretty good knowledge of what humans adore."

"I could help," it winked and then changed into a sexy girl wearing leafs clothes, revealing enough to tease.

Harry made four barriers, sealing the root inside.

"You are too dangerous to keep," Harry sighed and sent his soul energy inside—not too much, not too little. Enough to give it a mental challenge.

But since it had great defense against soul attacks, Harry had to increase the quantity tenfold.

"Don’t, I can help you... I will control a girl for you... I will give you hundreds of girls naked... I will make everyone worship you... I will help you kill the beasts and get a lot of beast crystals... I have thousands of beast crystals," the little parasite kept trying to offer many things to stop the torture, and it had almost succeeded when it said that it had thousands of crystals accumulated.

But Harry held back. The beast had controlled many humans, and it knew exactly what attracted a human. Even now, it had taken the shape of a cute little kid to evade the torture.

But Harry had no plans of stopping.

The struggle continued. Harry threw the box made of his barriers into the beast space. He was planning to supply it with soul energy from time to time.

Finally, he heard some footsteps. Harry glided close to them in the shadows.

"Once everything gets settled, we can start again. I have informed the nearby settlements. I am sure it will be interesting to see them fight each other," Harry heard them in the middle of a conversation.

Surprisingly, there were only two students.

Harry checked their level. They were at levels seven and eight.

Harry silently came out of the shadows. Using midnight shackles, he held them in place. Shadows curling on their legs.

Harry used a normal sword to attack from behind, slicing downward.

"Ding"

The sword struck a purple crystal grown on the man’s back at the last moment.

The man turned his head backward. The crystals fell down.

The spikes turned into a pool of purple liquid on the ground, retracting into the man’s body.

"Can I kill him?" the man asked.

"Yeah, I think so. He is not one of the promising guys."

Harry didn’t just stand there. Manifesting more and more shadows, he kept them locked to the ground. His sword fell again and struck more crystals.

Seeing the scene, the man just smiled.

"Nice element," then spikes cut through shadows, releasing all the pressure.

Harry continued attacking, breaking apart the crystals, and finally closed the distance, pushing the man down. More shadows curled around him.

Then he hit the man with a punch that was also blocked by a crystal. But with his second punch, a red needle manifested before Harry’s fist.

The red needle made of blood pierced the man in the guts.

"Arghhh," the man cried. The smile that had been blooming till now faded.

As Harry retracted his punch, the blood needle was encased in the man’s purple blood.

Harry’s heartbeat rose because it was clearly poison. The man’s whole blood was poison in itself.

If he retracted the blood back, the poison would also enter his body. So he let the needle drop, turning back into a mixture of red and purple.