Villain's Odyssey: Enslaving heroines, Conquering Villainesses
Chapter 51: An issue

Chapter 51: Chapter 51: An issue

This again. Asher narrowed his eyes, realizing he had made a major miscalculation.

He had used up all his ether in that single attack, and at this point, just standing was taking all his willpower. ’Why does it always drain all my ether whenever I use the connection?’ The thought troubled him deeply. At this rate, using these abilities was completely impractical.

Imagine being surrounded by monsters while holding a gun with only one bullet—yes, he’d be screwed no matter what strategy he came up with. Was the attack effective? Absolutely. That one blast had literally decimated the loop array. The people? Gone—literally vaporized! But practically speaking, if he couldn’t control the ether fed into the attack, he’d just be a glass cannon. Worse yet, a cannon that could only fire once.

First, he needed to understand how this ability worked. It definitely connected him to Anna through the slave seal—that was why he had access to ether in the first place. He suspected his alter had sealed his own ether, and since he didn’t have the hidden memories, he would... wait.

You require two souls, right? he asked mentally, remembering the requirement for accessing hidden memories.

Silence.

Asher frowned. The entity wasn’t responding. In fact, from the moment he’d seen those people, he’d had a nagging feeling. The fact that the system hadn’t confirmed any kills meant only one thing.

They didn’t die, he realized, glancing around.

"Asher?" Natalia’s voice drew his attention. She was staring at him in absolute shock, which was understandable. The kind of power he’d just displayed wasn’t something just anyone could manage—it was probably on the level of a celestial-tier spell. Her shock was completely warranted.

"Let’s get you somewhere safe," he said, scanning their surroundings. They were in an alley, just like in the illusion, but this time he could see people walking past both ends.

What happened? he wondered. Were those people part of the array?

It was possible. But now that he thought about it, such an array would require a high level of ether—meaning a high-rank ether core. Those things were damn expensive. It would be stupid to sacrifice one just to steal something when they weren’t even sure of the value... unless what Natalia carried was truly that valuable. Or maybe he was looking at it wrong—perhaps it wasn’t the card they needed. Maybe there was something else in her bag.

Using a high-tier ether core would leak massive amounts of ether and attract the authorities’ attention, he reasoned. Which meant this was probably...

An ability.

It seemed they’d been looking at it wrong from the very beginning. It wasn’t a loop array or anything mechanical like that.

Asher walked toward the wheelchair and grabbed the handle. However, the next instant...

Fuck. He’d completely underestimated the impact that attack had on his body.

Thud.

"Asher!"

...

...

"GAHHHHHH!" A man’s scream pierced the air as he sprang upright, gasping desperately for breath. Around him, several other figures jerked awake in similar states of disorientation.

The man’s wild eyes swept across the scene. His gaze immediately fixed on the woman kneeling in a meditative position on the ground, but something was terribly wrong. Blood was flowing steadily from various parts of her body—her nose, ears, even the corners of her eyes—creating dark stains on her academy uniform.

"Ezra!" He scrambled to his feet and rushed to her side, shaking her shoulders frantically. But her eyes remained completely unresponsive, staring blankly ahead as if she were looking through him at something infinitely distant.

"What the hell happened?" demanded a lady with short-cropped hair, shock and growing panic evident in her trembling voice.

"It’s that guy..." someone muttered. "That bastard who was with the target."

"Ether pool combustion?" suggested a young man with distinctive green hair and worried brown eyes, slowly standing up from the complex magic circle where they’d all been lying unconscious moments before.

"No," cursed the blue-haired, blue-eyed man who was still kneeling beside their injured teammate. He looked desperately toward their healer—a grey-haired lady with piercing blue eyes whose hands were already beginning to glow with the familiar, soft green light. She immediately placed both hands on Ezra’s back, channeling healing energy directly into her damaged body.

"Something... something is seriously wrong here," the healer said after several tense moments, her frown deepening with each passing second as she probed deeper.

"What do you mean ’wrong’?" the green-haired youth asked, his voice tight with barely controlled worry.

"I don’t know how to explain it. Physically, she’s stable... her ether core suffered some minor damage from the backlash, but that should be easily treatable. There’s something else happening here, something I’ve never encountered before." The healer’s voice carried an edge of professional frustration mixed with genuine fear.

"Who was that bastard in the first place?" snarled the grey-haired guy, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. "He wasn’t supposed to be with Natalia Polaris! Our intelligence was perfect!"

The fury in his voice was palpable. They had been meticulously planning this operation for months—so incredibly long, with every detail carefully orchestrated and every contingency accounted for. And just like that, with one impossibly powerful attack, some random stranger had completely destroyed everything they’d worked toward. Not only had their mission failed spectacularly, but their most valuable team member had suffered potentially permanent damage.

"I don’t know. I’ve never seen him before in my life," admitted the green-haired girl, her voice heavy with defeat. She sighed deeply and looked down at her friend, who continued to suffer from the severe backlash of her own shattered ability. With just that one devastating counterattack, their carefully constructed dream-realm had completely collapsed, and the abrupt, violent disconnection had sent damaging shockwaves through Ezra’s delicate ether channels.

"I think he’s definitely a student," the blue-haired man said through gritted teeth, his analytical mind still working despite his rage.

"A transfer student, maybe?" someone suggested.

"Perhaps. But that level of power..."

"We need to get her to the academy infirmary immediately," the healer said with urgent authority, her professional instincts overriding the group’s desire for revenge. "Whatever’s happening to her is beyond my current capabilities."

"What are we going to tell them happened to her?" asked the green-haired boy, voicing the question they were all dreading. "We can’t exactly explain that she was injured during an illegal assault on another student."

"You guys head back to the academy and find that bastard," the blue-haired man finally declared, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. His eyes had begun glowing with an intense, deep blue light. "I’ll handle getting Ezra proper medical attention."