At the side, watching the battle was none other than Vlan, the psychic user. He clapped and laughed, absolutely adoring the look of shock and betrayal.

This was his favorite thing!

"HAHAHAHHA! Go! Go fight more! Take them down! HAHA—"

It was why he always volunteered for big wars. Due to his unique abilities, he was quite treasured even in the home city, and his family wealth was quite substantial as well. Even so, he would jump at the chance of joining subsidiary wars.

Vlan’s power had a lot of limitations, but there were also a lot of advantages to it.

Especially during wars.

After all, outside of wars, his controls could not make them attack people. The power of the territory and the system’s protection simply did not allow for it.

It was like there was a blockage in his powers and it felt constipating! But during wars, he could make his puppets do a lot more things.

Vlan had been in Alterra for a long time, integrating well, joining markets, activities, and so on.

The young guards, not too strong but not too weak, were his greatest targets. He just had to set the trigger after prolonged encounters with them, and then activate them during the war.

The effect couldn’t last for a long time after it was activated—it would even be shorter the stronger the person was—but if timed well, it could be game changing.

At this time, out of the hundred or so Alterran guards assigned outside this Evacuation Center, only half remained! Some were taken down during the fights before, and some by their own teammates!

HAHA!

And these were all Alterrans. They assigned all the hired and volunteer mercenaries along the battlements and easements, after all!

Even his area alone would take down more Alterrans than any of its previous enemies during their entire war!

Unconsciously, because Alterra had been so well-guarded all this time, only suffering unbelievably low casualties in each war, doing this much gave enemies a sense of achievement.

His laughter stopped when a person suddenly appeared near the group of guards, lifting some weird stone artifact in his hand.

This was Taho, one of the older aborigine Alterrans. He raised a modified version of a familiar tool, the Howlbreaker.

The Howlbreaker was a tool used to repel low-level monsters passively just by the wind. Taho had been a member of the Tool Making team in the Research Center for a while now, and he had come to understand the basic principles and how exactly his tools worked.

This one created a sound that humans could hear. It naturally couldn’t control people, but it could diffuse all unnecessary sound elements in the air!

Taho glared at Vlan. His level was low, so he was useless to fight hand in hand, but he could at least minimize the unnecessary casualties on his side!

"Let’s see who can make more noise!"

...

This new tool was called Aether Sonar Disruptor. There was such a thing as a sonar disruptor, after all, and the waves this blocked were a bit different.

This also had the functions of ’refreshing the mind’, as if making them unconscious, then conscious again while standing.

Along with Taho was Obi, who had been assigned to lead one of the easements. It was one of the sectors where enemies got near via underground passage, and then jumped up to enter in droves before the battlement folk could react.

He had just finished off some leaks that went through, annoyingly, a lot of whom were level 30 mercenaries from the enemy side. He received an emergency notice in this area and rushed over to reinforce it.

He did not expect to see such tragedy.

Without further ado, he immediately rushed to help the remaining guards, all while keeping an eye on the enemy powerhouses in the area.

Obi was now at the peak of level 40, and this was probably the last war he could attack in while Alterra was in town level. He was planning on maximizing it!

By the time he appeared next to Vlan, the controlled guards had already awakened. They remembered everything they did while controlled.

They blinked, and their pupils constricted, utterly in shock.

Angelo stared at the bloodied state of his cousin, Jesse, body heavy as melted metal. "N-No..."

He snapped himself out of it and immediately rushed him to get help, not caring about the formation anymore. With Obi there, they had already regrouped anyway.

Before leaving, he caught a glimpse of the old man who was responsible for this.

He and Toktok had date nights every few days, and he would go to wait outside her workplace after his own shifts.

At some point, he befriended an old man who seemed to have a fondness for the chessboards placed around the parks.

He looked like a genuinely nice old man, and now the thought of the contrasting evil, vindictive face made Angelo both terrified and livid.

He felt guilty, bitter, and angry that tears and snot just endlessly poured out.

"Cousin," he gasped as he neared the hospital, tears and snot all over the place. "Please survive!"

...

Clank!

Clank!

Obi’s spear met with Vlan’s sword, creating wave after wave per hit. The people around them pushed back, and the trees and shrubs around them were destroyed.

It was inevitable that a good portion of Alterra’s forests would be decimated by the battles of powerhouses going on all over the place.

Even the precious Alterran Gardens, with all its curated flowers and well-designed gazebos, had become no different than dead ruins now.

It was a pity, but unavoidable at this scale of war.

Obi’s mana, due to his previous battles, was still replenishing at this time, so he was forced to make normal hits. However, even so, his battle experience and his level allowed him to push this bastard back, forcing him to go completely on the defensive.

As soon as Obi felt his mana had recovered enough, he quickly activated a few skills. His spear burst into flames, and his movement speed took a step higher, and Vlan couldn’t react in time.

Vlan gasped as he felt a sharp pain in his stomach, unable to immediately absorb what had happened to him.

Obi looked at the man cut in half, the open portion freshly cooked and disgusting.

"Dirt like you don’t deserve to breathe air."