Chapter 343: Mellifluous Enchantress

Now, Uhtred was well aware that Lyra Starweaver hadn’t spoken any words so far, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He killed all traces of positive thoughts about her immediately.

Just treat her like that Eifrith girl too and you’ll be fine, he concluded. Who knows, this one might also be delusional too.

He stepped forward, about to begin questioning her, when Zara cut in sharply.

"So, how do you want to die?" Zara said, a crack of spatial distortion forming around her palm. "Through the heart like your friend, or some other way? You’ve surrendered, so I’ll give you the chance to choose."

Uhtred raised a brow at Zara’s sudden move, but he tactfully chose not to interfere, stepping back slightly to give her the stage.

The elf girl, Lyra Starweaver, looked between Uhtred and Zara, her eyes still calculative.

"While that arrangement will benefit you, I don’t see how it would benefit me," she finally spoke. "So how about we come to an... amicable arrangement instead."

The moment Uhtred heard Lyra Starweaver’s voice, a deep frown immediately colored his face.

Nah... Zara’s right. Fuck her surrender, we really should kill her immediately!

Lyra Starweaver’s voice was the most lustrous, velvety sound that had ever graced his ears. Even standing still, Uhtred felt a fierce stirring begin to boil inside of him, softening his resolve and making her suggestion seem more logical.

It was faint, not enough that he couldn’t think straight or shut it down — but that was exactly the problem. The guile was passive, like a low, pleasant drone at the back of his mind.

Uhtred could tell that the more words she spoke, the more present that passive drone would become.

He grunted, stepping forward menacingly. Without hesitation, he conjured a Lightning battleaxe, intent to kill Lyra Starweaver then and there before her guile would have any major effect on either he or Zara.

"Wait, Uhtred," Zara hastily stepped in.

"She’s a beguiler, Zara! Nothing good will come out of keeping her alive," Uhtred growled.

"I know, I can sense it too," Zara quickly said. "But she still has her uses. Killing her will give us nothing."

"It will give us an Esoteric type core," Uhtred rebutted.

"Yes," Zara said. "But we’ll also lose the chance to gain information from her. She’s clearly willing to talk, so let’s listen. Or do you want to keep flying around aimlessly until we stumble on another Floating Island? Let’s find out what she knows about the location of other Champions..."

Zara paused, watching Uhtred process her words with a scowl on his face.

"...Besides, you saw the rules of the competition," Zara added. "Do you really want to kill another Champion right now and risk our total numbers falling down even more?"

"She’s right," Lyra Starweaver quipped from the side. "I don’t know when last you checked the whole leaderboard, but there are only seventy-three Champions left in this competition. Kill me and you bring that number down to seventy-two... one step closer to fifty."

She paused, allowing Uhtred to check for himself. Uhtred silently brought up the Leaderboard rankings and scrolled to the bottom. Lyra Starweaver was right, there were only seventy-three Champions left in the competition — in fact, before Uhtred’s very eyes, that number dropped down to seventy-two. Another Champion had been killed somewhere.

While that seemed good on the surface — since the faster their numbers dropped down to fifty, the faster the competition could end — Uhtred didn’t want that to happen... at least not yet.

First off, he still wanted to rack up more Race Shards so he and the other human Champions could secure a better share of the fifty legacies of Valeria.

Not to mention, not every human Champion had crossed into the top fifty yet. Aside from King Alexei, Perfection, Zara, Black Sun Mateo, and Uhtred himself, the others were still outside the top fifty, Diya and White Raven included.

Of course, killing powerful enemies like Theron and Lyra Starweaver would open up new slots, shifting everyone a step up on the rankings, but even then, Uhtred couldn’t be certain every human Champion would make it.

Needless to say, both Zara and Lyra Starweaver were right. Even though Uhtred wanted to kill Lyra Starweaver and be done with her, the more logical choice was to keep her alive and close by.

Perhaps that was what Lyra Starweaver and the now-deceased Theron had been doing in the first place. The Trolls they had in their company, perhaps they didn’t kill them for this exact purpose.

Realizing he would have to concede, Uhtred let out a frustrated hiss and stepped away from Lyra Starweaver. He walked over to where he’d pried the Race Shard from and sat down heavily, leaving the interrogation up to Zara entirely, his reasoning being that if Zara was somehow beguiled, at least someone would remain to regain control of the situation.

He dispersed his Lightning battleaxe and instead conjured two small pockets of air to cover his ear canals, blocking out all sounds.

For the rest of the exchange, he simply watched from the side, sometimes reading Zara’s lips to piece together what was being said.

Curiously, he was also reminded of the translation layer he’d seemed to have forgotten by now. Whenever he tried reading Lyra Starweaver’s lips, he couldn’t make out anything, as she spoke in her Elvish tongue.

Still, from what Uhtred could make out from Zara’s lip movement, they seemed to be talking about the location of other Floating Islands. They also exchanged words about a thing called "Calm Mind," if Uhtred had read Zara’s lips correctly.

What is that? Like a skill or something?

Uhtred waited to find out. He watched Zara carefully for any signs of beguiling control. Even when the information grilling finally concluded and Zara walked up to him, he still watched her carefully for any signs.

"Heh! Your mate is a very cynical one," Lyra Starweaver remarked with a chuckle, directing her statement at Zara. She then focused on Uhtred:

"You don’t need to worry, she has the skill ’Calm Mind’. It would take more than a passive guile to breach her mind," Lyra said.

Uhtred raised a brow, glancing at Zara.

"What exactly is ’Calm Mind’?"