Chapter 150: Adrian Vs Marion: A Game Of Puppets

"How?" It was the only thing Marion could say as his wide eyes met Adrian’s.

He was supposed to be dead, Marion was certain of that. His ritual ensured that the vessel was left empty for his possession,

So how?

How was he still alive?

Adrian’s eyes, now black as the void itself, looked directly at the surprised Marion.

"I have no idea," he answered, a question that wasn’t truly directed at him, "but I guess this messes with your plans quite a bit."

Marion was silent, confused even, but the next second, he started chuckling, which evolved into full-blown laughter.

"The more I discover about you," Marion said, still breathless from laughing, "the more I’m convinced the goddess truly did send you to me."

He looked at Adrian with the bright, completely wrong expression of someone who had just watched a dead man stand up and found it delightful rather than alarming.

"I’m going to have that body," he continued, "no matter what it takes."

"Even if it means I have to kill you multiple times over."

There was silence between the two before Marion added, "Besides, once trapped in my strings, there’ll be no escape for you."

Adrian looked at him in silence for a while before asking, "What strings?"

And that was when Marion finally realized that the strings, previously restraining Adrian, were nowhere to be seen. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

He looked down at his hands.

The strings were there and he could feel them.

He could sense every thread extending from his fingers, but between him and Adrian there was nothing.

The restraints he had maintained even through the transfer attempt, the ones that should have still been wrapped around a body he had just emptied, were simply gone.

He had never lost his strings before, nor had they ever been snapped.

Not once.

"Interesting," he said as he looked up at Adrian again, completely reassessing him and that’s when he noticed something else.

His mana had changed.

No, it would be more accurate to say that his mana volume had increased.

This was another impossibility because Marion had suppressed his recovery with the strings from the moment they appeared.

He had calculated Adrian’s ceiling carefully and he knew that the butler was a B-rank operating above his apparent level, exceptional for his age but manageable with the right approach.

What was standing in front of him now was not that.

"Ah," Marion said softly.

"Yes," Adrian agreed.

From the moment he returned to his body, it felt as if he had gone through a breakthrough again.

His mana, which once felt like an ocean, now felt boundless, getting strangely close to the feeling he got in ’that form’, thought a lot more subpar.

Then, he felt as if everything was his to erase, right now, he just felt as if the darkness itself within this temple was willing to bow to his call.

And that’s when he realized something,

He was currently at the peak of A-rank, a breakthrough achieved without its trial.

But he was snapped out of his thoughts when Noctis’ voice was heard in his head, «It’s only temporary, this borrowed power will disappear soon and the price will be collected.»

"I see," Adrian muttered as he continued looking at Marion, "then let’s quickly end this."

"Well then," Marion said, and spread both hands wide, "entertain me more before you hand your body over."

His strings filled the entire hall, but none seemed to be aimed at Adrian.

Instead, they attached themselves to what seemed like smaller statues behind the broken pillars.

As he did that, the shadow beneath Adrian’s feet suddenly spread and out came multiple shadow clones, numbering up to ten.

Their forms seemed a lot more solid now, rather than just being a silhouette and they felt a lot stronger.

Probably a side effect of his temporary power-up.

The statues with the strings attached suddenly came alive and they moved towards Marion on his command.

They stood before the clones as the two sides continued looking at each other, but the next second, without any command, they moved.

BOOM!

The clones clashed with the statues in the center of the hall, causing the temple to tremble.

But whilst that happened, Adrian wasn’t idle either.

Marion was suddenly forced to dodge to the side as a massive spike of darkness erupted from the ground where he had been standing a second earlier.

BOOOOM!!!

The floor shattered instantly.

But before he could even regain his footing, Adrian was already in front of him.

Marion’s eyes widened slightly before countless blood-red strings shot forward instinctively to intercept him.

But the moment the strings got close enough to him, they suddenly turned black and disappeared.

Though, that gave Marion enough time to immediately retreat several meters backward.

"What the hell are you?" he muttered, genuine confusion finally slipping into his voice.

Adrian ignored the question, but truthfully, he was just as confused.

The darkness around him felt alive and it also felt so very hungry right now.

And what exactly was it hungry for?

Corrupted mana.

Every strand of corrupted mana within the temple was instinctively being drawn toward him.

Even Marion’s strings, made completely of corrupted mana, weren’t exempt, and Adrian had a suspicion that this had something to do with the Oroborus’ mark.

Or probably Noctis’s last words before Adrian came back to life, either way, he put that thought away for now.

Behind them, the shadow clones and statues continued tearing into each other violently.

One of the clones had its torso pierced straight through by a stone spear, only for its body to dissolve into shadow before reforming instantly behind the statue and ripping its head off.

Marion’s expression darkened as he watched this go on, he asked to be entertained, but this was beyond what he expected.

"This is getting annoying."

A moment after his words, all the statues fell to the floor as he retracted his strings, but that didn’t mean he had given up, far from it.

Because the next second, the strings suddenly converged towards him, creating a cocoon of sorts.

With it, came an explosion of dark, corrupted mana.

A moment after, the cocoon of strings was suddenly broken, and out walked something completely different from Marion.

The creature pointed towards Adrian and the next second, strings behind it suddenly launched themselves towards him, easily dismantling the clones before reaching Adrian.

And then,

BOOM!