Ruthless V5Ch35-The Psychic King Part 1

“Thank you,” James said, carefully manipulating his voice to mimic the Panther Scout’s. “I have traveled a long way to be here.”

The Queen suddenly snapped her head back to look at him, her body language full of surprise.

“Whisper!” she exclaimed. “I thought you were dead…”

“I think my true body is dead, my Queen,” James said, still performing his imitation. As he spoke, he felt Hester leap free from his fur, off to explore and gather information. James doubted there would be much of use to find in this particular setting—it seemed to him to simply be the Panther Queen’s happy place or something—but he hoped that Hester would be able to dig in and find more than what was apparent on the surface.

“Then how…?” the Queen asked.

James took several steps forward, going with the flow, and knelt before the Panther Queen.

“Some bonds are too strong to be severed by death,” he intoned.

“Tell me everything,” she said.

James could feel her trust and belief in the image of her late subject. He had to hide his smile.

“The powers of the Fisher King…” he began.

James spent a short time lying about what the Panther Scout had experienced in his territory. The one detail he made sure to tell the truth about, however, was the ultimate fate of the creature.

“You have been made into an undead?” the Panther Queen asked, eyes wide. “How can you be here? My grasp of magic has never been my strong suit, but it all seems too impossible…”

“I am in the process of being made into an undead,” James replied. “I should tell you, I cannot stay much longer. My spirit roams while in the midst of the ritual each night, but—” James manipulated his form to make his body seemingly flicker. “Ugh, the Necromancer pulls me back. Please, my Queen—I will return when I can to give more information. When they look into my mind, I also look into theirs, but please be careful, I—”

James made himself completely invisible, as if he had vanished from the dream entirely.

The Panther Queen just stared right through him. Looked forlornly at the space where the Panther Scout had been.

“I wish I hadn’t known,” she murmured after a long silence. “I wish I hadn’t known what happened to you. I… I am sorry I sent you. I will take revenge.”

James gritted his teeth. That was a predictable reaction, but it was still a problem. The Panther Queen had already been planning on making her way to the Fisher Kingdom; that much had been confirmed in the conversation. But James did not need to go giving her additional motivation.

At least she knows now that I have a hostage, James thought. Her former comrade’s soul is in our grip. We can torment him or release him to the afterlife as we please. That will give us some natural ground to begin negotiations in the future if that’s necessary.

Tonight would also be the start to his psychological warfare against the Queen and her army.

While the Panther Queen stared at the space where James stood, invisibly, he began subtly influencing the dream.

Thoughts of battle, he thought, focusing on pushing these ideas into the framework of the dream. Memories of a battle where you were pressed. A time that you had difficulties, dealing with someone mystical like the Fisher King…

That was one of the lies James had told. He had given her the idea that the Fisher King was a primarily magic-based fighter who was probably bad at close combat—as well as providing the true, though slightly misleading detail that James could devour the souls of his victims. He had hoped that would prove somewhat intimidating, though the Queen seemed like she was made of stuff too strong to be dissuaded.

As James focused, and the Queen stared at nothing, the environment of the dream began to change.

Another setting appeared, still outdoors, but not nearly as peaceful. The sky was gray and rumbled with thunder and lightning. The very air smelled of electricity—and magic.

James allowed himself a smile. His manipulation had succeeded. There was clearly a battle about to happen here. Rather than a mere dream, he was fairly certain he had brought up one of the Panther Queen’s memories.

A formation of humans stood on a small hill—the only kind of hill that existed in Florida, generally—and stared down in the direction of the Panther Queen and James. The Panther Army was there, too. They were gathered in a circle around the hill.

It appeared to James to be a standoff of a sort. The humans at the top of the hill, though there were hundreds of them, were outnumbered, three or four to one. But the two thousand or so Pantherfolk at the bottom would have to attack the high ground if they wanted to get at those humans, and attacking uphill was a good way of suffering disproportionate casualties on your side.

The best thing for the Pantherfolk would be to get the humans to descend, and the best thing for the humans would be for the Pantherfolk to climb the hill—preferably slowly.

With the shift in scenery, the Panther Queen was immediately pulled out of her distracted mental state. She looked as if she had forgotten where she was for a moment, blinked away confusion, and then her eyes focused on the leader of the humans, a man sitting at the very pinnacle of the hill, on a metal throne that looked a lot like a wheelchair.

James could tell from the simple body language of the people around him, as well as the pressure in the air, that this man was the Ruler of the human group. Every one of the humans who wasn’t laser-focused on the Pantherfolk kept an eye toward him, looking for his direction before they moved.

The human Ruler simply smiled at the Panther Queen and waved, one of those goofy waves where each individual finger moves like the waver is drumming in midair. The gesture had a mocking air to it, as if the man felt no threat at all from being confronted by a mass of enemies who had been built to be predators even before the System.

James felt something more, though. A mood in the air. He was unaffected by it—he was not even there, after all—but it settled over all those at the base of the hill like a blanket.

There’s a mental effect at work. He saw not only the Pantherfolk, but even the Queen herself, begin to get worked up.

“Thank you for coming to see me, Panther Queen!” shouted the human Ruler from down on the hill. “So glad you could make it!” The atmospheric Mana seemed to help his voice travel from the hilltop down to the ground level where the Panther Army was.

That was what brought it home to James.

She’s attacking him in his own territory… Everything I’m seeing is under this guy’s direct control. This would be a far more uphill struggle than the last battle James had witnessed.

“They’re mocking us,” the Queen said under her breath.

Does that bother her a lot? James wondered. She had seemed fairly calm and collected in the other battle he had seen. That little greeting? The mental effect this guy is imposing must be pretty strong.

James found himself rather glad he had not been forced to face off against this Ruler himself. He hated those mental manipulation types, and he was aware that he had only a mixed track record of dealing effectively with that sort of strategy. Both Chava back in Orientation, using a Skill, and Anansi’s children, using sheer deception, had manipulated him a bit.

The Fisher King’s brain was not a completely useless organ, but his most valuable muscles might actually be—well, his muscles. Either those, or his vast ocean of Mana and ridiculous oversupply of Skills.

“And what do they call you?!” the Panther Queen shouted. But there was a clap of thunder that was almost perfectly simultaneous with her words, and it functioned to drown them out.

The enemy Ruler was definitely trying to rile her up. James thought there was absolutely no chance that this was an accident.

Maybe that’s why he’s perched in such a high place. It could make it easier to control the weather.

The Panther Queen opened her mouth to speak again, but the other Ruler replied to her first words before she could.

“I can hear you perfectly well, no need to shout!” he yelled, his voice booming like the thunder. “They call me the Psychic King. Thank you for delivering all of these servants, by the way.” He gestured carelessly at her army. “You really shouldn’t have. I am always happy to have more pets, though.”

This guy is going to die very painfully when the Queen gets her hands on him, James thought. He wished he had a bucket of popcorn.

The atmosphere around the Panther Army intensified, though James suspected he was the only one capable of appreciating it besides the Psychic King himself.

“I have come to bring you to justice for your many crimes!” the Queen practically roared. “Surrender now, and you may keep your head. Fight, and for every one of my people who is killed, I will slay two of yours!”

“What, you think I care?” the Psychic King asked. There was a note of amusement in his voice.

You’re that open about your people being disposable, James thought. Why would they follow—oh…

Looking back and forth at the different faces around the Psychic King, James recognized a look that his own face had briefly displayed—when he was being mind-controlled.

The name “Psychic King” wasn’t given for nothing, huh? So, this is a battle between monsters and a slave army. He was slightly bothered to find himself rooting for the Panther Queen. Then he shook his head. He reminded himself that who he rooted for didn’t matter. This battle, whatever its outcome, was in the past.

There was a bit of further back and forth between the Panther Queen and the Psychic King, including the human Ruler revealing that he had a number of nonhumans serving him, interspersed among the humans. The nonhumans were all wearing collars, and he ordered one of them to serve as his footrest as the conversation went on.

Everything he did was transparently designed to provoke the Panther Queen, and—probably because it was empowered by his mental abilities—it clearly worked. The atmosphere of anger and pressure around the Panther Army continued intensifying further.

The Queen grew more and more incensed as the conversation went on, and finally, she seemed to think she had no other choice. She raised her voice to a roar once again, but this time, it was directed at her own troops.

“Kill the Psychic King!” she shouted. “All of you, charge, and bring me his head!”

Her army hastened to obey, after a fashion.

At least, they acted as if they had some semblance of planning or training already on how to do something like attacking up a hill against enemy forces, despite the seemingly impulsive decision by their leader.

Robe-wearing figures who James recognized from the first battle he had observed, wielding staffs and charging Mana, stepped forward and began chanting, preparing some sort of magic. The rest of the army, rather than running up the hill as James had imagined they might, either took up shields or gathered behind those who had shields and began slowly marching uphill.

The majority-human force at the top of the hill did not stand idle, of course. They had clearly taken up the position where they stood with foreknowledge that they would likely be doing battle from there. The scores of men and women who were armed with arrows or firearms began shooting down at the shield-bearing Pantherfolk ascending the hill, while those who did not have ranged weapons reached behind them to where there was apparently a hidden supply of large rocks. They hurled the stones downhill, to much the same effect as those who were shooting.

The Panther Army were mostly able to take the attacks fairly well on their shields. Some of their number fell, only for their nearest neighbor to take up the shield and continue the advance. And besides those one the front lines, few Pantherfolk even found themselves receiving fire.

A few human Mages hurled more potent projectiles—fire and ice, balls of condensed earth, though nothing too complicated or unusual—but none of what they threw seemed to make much difference. The Pantherfolk were hardy and far more numerous than the humans, and the more dangerous blows, they tended to dodge. Occasionally one fell, but it was one out of a hundred, and the rest of their comrades would simply march forward stoically, not even slowed by the sight of one of their number injured or dead.

On the other hand, the Psychic King appeared to be gathering a greater quantity of power around himself, charging a very large quantity of Mana.

James saw him mouth some words. It looked like he was saying, “If you want something done right…”

Suddenly the crackling Mana around the Psychic King stilled. The man’s lips twisted into a malevolent smile.

The Ruler reached toward the sky, and a handful of clouds began to condense, forming into balls of concentrated water and lightning.

Then the Psychic King started hurling them toward the advancing Panther Army.