Chapter 88: Mind Geist

Adam couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

No, believe wasn’t even the right word. He couldn’t process it. An experimental monster? That phrase alone sounded wrong, like reality itself had stuttered.

“What do you mean by experimental?” Adam asked, his voice slower now, as if saying the words too fast would make them real.

Part of him still hoped he had misunderstood. That maybe this was some obscure classification, some rare variant he hadn’t studied yet. Vanessa destroyed that hope with her next words.

“A Mind Geist is not a naturally formed monster,” she said evenly. “It was created in a laboratory.”

Something in Adam snapped.

Monsters were enemies. Existential threats. Things humanity was supposed to erase, not recreate.

And yet people had looked at them and decided they could make more.

The thought alone repulsed him.

He didn’t care what excuse they used.

He didn’t care what justification they hid behind.

He didn’t care if the one who ordered it claimed to be a savior or a god. Creating monsters was a line no one should ever cross.

Things like this are exactly what will stop me from actualizing my vision. I clear two in front of me, and three more are engineered behind my back.

For the first time, a thought crossed his mind, only briefly, but the thought was defining.

Eliminating monsters alone might never be enough.

Vanessa’s voice cut into his thoughts at that moment.

“The project was scrapped by the Alliance, as they deemed it too dangerous and unstable to control.”

Adam’s jaw tightened as she continued.

“But, it seems the Faradays managed to get their hands on one.”

Adam exhaled slowly as the manager concluded, he forced his anger down. Rage wouldn’t help him understand what he was dealing with.

“Why was it difficult to control?”

Vanessa didn’t look at him. Her veiled gaze turned to the hole, as if something down there might be listening.

“Because of its special talent.”

Her voice hardened.

“Mind Control E.”

Adam’s breath hitched.

E?

“What rank and class is it?”

For the first time since this conversation began, Vanessa hesitated, only a fraction of a second.

Then she answered, her tone brutally direct.

“It’s a Normal, Level 1 monster.”

The words settled. Then it crushingly sank, as Adam slowly turned back to the hole.

A Normal Level 1 monster.

With Mind Control E.

Hidden beneath an arcade.

Protecting the generator powering the sector-wide barrier and mutant rift rapid expansion.

The situation hadn’t just gotten bad. It had become catastrophic. At this point Adam didn’t care how Henry had managed to smuggle a Mind Geist into the sector.

He didn’t care how it was hidden beneath an arcade, or how long it had been sitting there, feeding on power and silence.

By now, it was obvious this wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment scheme. This was a plan layered with contingencies, something prepared long in advance by people with reach, resources, and patience. Maybe an entire organization. Maybe just one terrifyingly competent individual.

He didn’t have proof.

But he didn’t need it.

Right now, what mattered was simple.

The Normal Level 1 monster.

The initial shock had already faded. Once emotions were stripped away, the problem became manageable. Difficult, yes, but not impossible. Especially not for him. With his current strength, his talents, and Mission Hall support, taking down a Mind Geist was within reach.

Which was when a thought slipped in.

A wrong thought.

Adam’s eyes swept the energy room. It was deserted, with not a single acolyte, guard, or analyst in sight.

It was just him and the manager.

He hadn’t noticed at first, as he was too focused on the hole and the foul presence leaking from below, but now the absence screamed at him.

Why is it just us?

Then a colder realization followed.

How did they identify it as a Mind Geist in the first place?

The thought didn’t even finish forming before his instincts exploded. Death intent slammed into his senses.

As Adam twisted, and a halberd sliced through the space where his head had been a fraction of a second ago. He moved on pure reflex, body blurring sideways, as steel hissed past him. His feet hit the ground lightly, eyes already locking onto his attacker.

Vanessa.

She stood where she had been before, but something was wrong.

Her posture was stiff.

Her expression… empty.

Her hand was still outstretched from the missed strike.

Adam didn’t hesitate.

[Connect].

The world shifted.

Soul flames bloomed into view, and the one burning inside Vanessa was violently wrong, twisted and hostile. Threads of foreign intent coiled around it like black veins, pulsing with command.

Mind control. Before she could pull the halberd back, Adam vanished. He reappeared behind her in a blink, hand already raised.

Chop.

His strike landed cleanly against the side of her neck, as she crumpled instantly, her consciousness snuffed out before her body even hit the ground.

Adam caught her before she fell, lowering her carefully to the floor.

His eyes hardened as he looked back toward the hole.

Adam exhaled slowly.

That sickening feeling from earlier, the crawling disgust that had made his skin itch and his thoughts blur, it finally made sense.

It wasn’t intuition… It was an attack.

A mental one.

“And it really messed me up,” Adam muttered under his breath.

Normally, the moment he approached anyone, [Connect] would already be active. It was instinct by now. But this time he hadn’t done it.

That brief disorientation, that sense of something being wrong without knowing why, had delayed him just enough.

Enough for the Mind Geist to slip its hooks in.

His gaze flicked to Vanessa’s unconscious body, then toward the hole again.

“The acolytes outside haven’t been controlled,” he said quietly, thinking aloud. ​”At least the woman who brought me here wasn’t.”

​That narrowed it down.

​”But the manager has clearly been controlled since I arrived. The fact that I didn’t use [connect] immediately means the attack started then to. Its influence should be limited to the arcade, yet it’s already reaching into the surrounding perimeter.”

That was both good news and bad.

Good, because it meant the situation hadn’t already spiraled beyond recovery.

Bad, because it meant the creature below was strong, and confident enough to act directly once he entered its domain.

Adam straightened, shoulders squaring.

Asking for help will only complicate things.

Anyone weaker than him would only be dead weight, or worse, another weapon for the Geist to use. The fact that its mind control hadn’t worked on him didn’t mean he was immune. It only meant one thing.

It’s at least my equal.

A Normal Level One monster would have a star power around 15.

Adam’s eyes sharpened.

“I can handle that, but I can’t trust the details of the manager fully.”

Adam thought for a while before he nodded to himself.

“I’m going to need a proper conduit.”

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