Chapter 139: Eyeball Extraction

Chapter 139: Eyeball Extraction

Astrid approached the monster that she had felled. She connected her mind to the guardian as she effortlessly turned it over onto its back. The tremendous weight and Constitution of the monster still existed, so the added Intelligence usefulness was obvious.

As she focused on the Skill; Dominating Sovereigns Eye, the guardian’s eyes lit up. It was as if they were guiding her to do something. To pull out its eyes.

Listening to the Skill, she yanked out the monster's eyes without a lot of effort. It was as if they were hers to be pulled.

The eyes hovered in front of her, then, as if her third eye had a mind of its own–sucked in only one eyeball as the other fell to the ground with a splat.

Dominating Sovereigns Eye has extracted the Skill - Phase Wave - From the Tree Ent War Guardian.

Phase Slam: Project a mana wave that begins from your limbs. Damage scales from Intelligence and Strength.

Would you like to merge with - Phase Wave Y/N?

Astrid thought for a moment. It wasn’t a Skill she needed as she doubted it could even compare to the Stage 3 Crash. Yet, it wouldn’t hurt to at least try it out. Astrid just hoped that she could remove it from the “bank” of her Skill.

Acknowledging the Skill, it entered into her third eye and vanished within. There was a strange heat that pervaded her mind, and just like all the other Skills before, the knowledge of its use was imparted to her.

Copying the guardian’s stance, Astrid punched the air and activated the Skill. Mana surged from her eye container, then throttled through her arm and finally it was projected out her fist. The blue mana was visibly thicker than even the guardian’s own as it smashed into a nearby root column, smashing it completely. The metallic rings of hardened roots clashed to the ground from the impact.

Quickly realising that it was difficult to gauge the strength of the attack as she had just received a power up, she decided to use [Crash] as well.

As Astrid connected to a mass of matter in front of the root, she realised that the mana inside her eye was acting differently than before. It was difficult to tell at first from using a new Skill, but she had used [Crash] thousands of times.

She didn’t know whether it was thanks to the mana, or the Level up, but the matter was now so much faster to amass than before. Or maybe it was the new Transcendent Skill? Astrid thought.

After all, although it didn’t necessarily say it improved her matter control, it was an eye. Maybe it helped her gain a finer control over the matter without exactly having it in the description. Whatever the reason was, she could now use a high powered [Crash] in half the time it would have otherwise taken.

Perhaps more testing was necessary. But it seemed the tree king had finally prepared another test for her to complete.

The walls and ceilings began trembling, a sign that it was time to move on, but before that. Her System had reminded her of something. She never had the time to test it until now.

Astrid crouched down to the guardian as soil from above dropped against her Mind Barrier.

Using Disintegration on the corpse, its bark-like skin instantly turned black from her touch. Then, the darkness spread slowly as a twinkling light shone within the almost burn-like black of the Disintegration Skill. It looked like the void’s sky.

It wasn’t long before the entire body turned black, and then, it simply vanished from existence.

Skill level up!

Astrid wasted no more time and yanked the spawn’s eyeballs that were filled with wrath, tearing them from its sockets. The special effect from her ring activated and with a sudden explosion, the matter behind its sockets exploded the monster's skull. Fragments splattered against her shield.

But Astrid wasn’t focused on the body, instead, her vision lay on the eyes. The ice ability that the spawn had displayed. She wanted it.

Accepting one of the spawn’s eyes, she absorbed it into her third eye and instead of a heat, a frigid cold took its place. It reminded her of the days Leena and her had a race to see who could finish their ice-creams first, of course, Astrid always won. But it resulted in a brain-freeze that she swore was almost shattering her mind every time. Yet she always persisted. She wanted to win.

Dominating Sovereigns Eye has extracted the Skill - Ice Touch - From the Spawn Frost-Warrior.

Ice Touch: Turn any water you touch into that of an enchanted, frigid ice. The ice increases attack power. Scales with Intelligence.

Would you like to merge with - Ice Touch Y/N?

Astrid accepted the ability and focused on it. She activated the mana within her eye and felt the cold energy travel from her container, to her palm. Then, a layer of ice covered her finger-tips.

Sprinting to the edge of the water, she touched it and it resulted in a solid layer of ice on the top. Since it scaled with Intelligence, the power of the ice was great. Although she did come to a realisation about her new Skill.

Because she didn’t have a Class to synergise well with the Skill, it would remain weaker than her current Skills. It meant she either had to find two Skills that complemented her psychic abilities so that her buffs remain on the chosen Skills. Or pick some other Skills, for instance, passive buffs.

There were countless possibilities, but she had to focus on a movement Skill first. Something to give her a burst of movement, or maybe even hide her presence entirely like an illusion–but stronger. Then for the second, a passive strengthening to her Intelligence stat, or psychic power.

Astrid shook her head as there was more coming from the depths of the water. More spawn. Just like how it had always been since the Leviathan appeared. There were always so many.

From the corner of her eyes. She could see two hovering eyeballs. One was cold like ice, the other was strong like a wave. It reminded her of the “Eye Queen”. She was surrounded by hundreds, maybe even thousands of eye-balls all at once.

Did she have thousands of Skills? Or maybe she was lazy and they all held passive abilities like Astrid had in mind.

Astrid smirked and slapped the water. The entire river became encased in ice just from her touch, but it wouldn’t stop the spawn. It was as if the soft flesh of her skin had made her their greatest arch enemy.

The thick layer of ice lasted for only a moment as the spawn smashed through. It impeded their movements only slightly, but sometimes, that was all that was needed.

All five of them, with the added buff from her Oculus Witch Class, tore their eyes from their skulls as if they were originally hers in the first place. It was so easy. There was no resistance. It was merely like tearing a single piece of paper–brittle.

Then, a warm tingle formed in her hands. It wasn’t because of her new collection of eyeballs that spiralled around her, but what was down below.

Through the crystal clear icy waters below, it looked at her. It was as if an ancient sea serpent had awakened from its deep slumber.

It had such big, beautiful eyes.

Astrid grinned.