Maka always listened attentively to every word the windbreaker wizard spoke. Because Maka understands that maybe you can ignore anyone's words, but her suggestions must be carefully considered.
Therefore, when the other party said "Wait a moment", even though he had already decided to kill the basilisk, he subconsciously stopped his movements.
The staff with the cooling rune flashing suddenly stopped on the way.
"What's wrong?"
Maka turned around and glanced at the windbreaker wizard behind her, with a trace of doubt and deep thought on her face.
Of course, magic perception is not enough to be able to sense other people's expressions. In this darkness, the windbreaker wizard with her eyes slightly closed opened her mouth, but she never said what she wanted to say.
In her strange silence, the basilisk, which had been grazed by Maka's regular power beam, struggled and twisted due to the pain of its frozen flesh.
There is no doubt that Maka's blow just now was extremely powerful - just this one blow was comparable to the damage caused to it by the flame dragon that was strengthened by Willie's father with a fire bottle earlier.
After all, the injury seemed to be just white on the surface, but in fact it also froze part of the flesh and blood underneath.
"Hiss—"
Maka, who couldn't wait for the windbreaker wizard's next words, was attracted by the basilisk's low hiss again. After noticing the basilisk's current state, he frowned slightly.
"Um?"
As far as Maka knows, the basilisk's IQ is not high. And because of this, apart from their special magical power, their behavior is actually closer to ordinary beasts.
And until just now, this series of actions such as the confrontation between the basilisk and the Acromantula, the confrontation with him, etc. basically did not deviate from his expectations.
But now, he can't understand it.
Generally speaking, when beasts encounter completely unbeatable opponents, they often choose to run away. Therefore, when Maka stopped because of the windbreaker wizard's words, the basilisk should have taken the opportunity to break into the Acromantula's encirclement.
As a basilisk, even the alienated Acromantula can hardly harm it. The previous spider swarm's siege on it just proved this.
However, although the basilisk entrenched opposite Maka shrank back a little, it abnormally showed no intention of escaping.
Yes, just looking at the shrinking and vigilant look, it doesn't even think about risking its life.
"Could it be that... it judged the gap and knew it couldn't escape, so it simply lost its will to fight?"
Such thoughts rarely appear in the beast's mind. Because for them, every battle will be a matter of life and death. Unless they fight hard or run away, they rarely sit still and wait for death.
So... To be honest, this basilisk is indeed a bit strange!
After noticing this doubt, Maka tilted his head again, and his consciousness paused for a moment at the source of magic behind him that belonged to the windbreaker wizard.
"Did she just notice this and ask me to stop?"
First, he was asked to wait, but then he said nothing, which inevitably made people feel a little confused.
Suddenly, Maka gently shook the staff that was still half-raised, and the ice-blue rune on the top of the staff instantly turned into a wisp of fine ice crystals and dissipated. Immediately afterwards, he held the staff in front of him again, and a wave of magic power spread out quickly.
Suddenly, another translucent rune appeared and disappeared. It was undoubtedly the soul rule rune mastered by Maka.
The next moment, almost all the creatures swept by the magic wave left a slightly blurry image in his mind one by one.
Not to mention the Acromantulas, even the snakes, insects, rats, and ants in other nearby sewers all appeared in his perception one by one.
Obviously, it was one soul after another.
However, the windbreaker wizard who was closest to Maka had the least clear soul. The reason for this is probably that the other party is very likely to have mastered a certain branch of the soul rules.
Yes, this is definitely an important point for Maka, but that is not what he wants to focus on now.
What he wanted to see at this moment was actually the basilisk!
When Maka "saw" the basilisk's soul, his expression suddenly became a little weird.
It was like buying potato chips at half price in the supermarket and then finding out that they were about to expire. Although it was a bit surprising, in the end, it was expected.
"Human? Woman?" Maka frowned and thought to herself, "Humph, should I say it's Haierbo? Although we have long known that he is good at transforming creatures, so far, he has transformed humans into magical creatures several times. That's it... but turning a person into a real basilisk is really incredible."
Speaking of Maka, he himself has done a lot of research on biological modification and bloodline modification. Not only the alienated Acromantulas around him, but also extracting Willy's bloodline curse was one of his research results.
But Maka now had to admit that he couldn't transform a person into a basilisk.
Well, even the husband of Rowena, Ewan Ravenclaw, who had died in the hands of Helbo, could barely turn wizards into magical creatures temporarily only after studying Merlin's notes for a long time.
But what was in front of Maka at this moment was a real basilisk. If he didn't use the soul rules to explore its soul, he wouldn't even have discovered that it was actually a living woman!
Thinking of this, Maka couldn't help but take a few steps forward and came to the center of the waterway closer to the basilisk.
"Since you were once a human, then...you should be able to understand what I said, right?" Maka could sense that the basilisk moved back again when he approached, "Tell me, Haierbo is here where?"
As soon as he finished speaking, the darkness fell into dead silence again.
The basilisk didn't speak, nor did it make any more humane actions... No, maybe "her" current silence can actually be regarded as a human expression.
"hiss-"
Suddenly, a neighing sound came from in front of Maka, which contained some unknown meaning.
It's a pity that Maka is not a Parseltongue, so I don't know what she wants to express. All he knew was that things became more complicated when he discovered that this was actually a human being.
"Legilimency."
But when Maka suddenly raised his staff, the power of the spell was further enhanced by his understanding of the rules of the soul. This might help him break through the basilisk's strong resistance to magic.
But soon, he put down the staff again and shook his head gently.
The strength of the spell seems to be enough, but this spell requires contact with the opponent's eyes in order to be cast normally. He could use Legilimency with his eyes closed like this to forcefully work on people, but when it came to dealing with the basilisk, it was somewhat reluctant.
"If that's the case... forget it, let's take her away first! After Harry comes out, we may be able to get some valuable information from her memory."
If this is really just a basilisk, it probably won't make much sense to look through its memory, but if it's a human, it obviously can't be dealt with casually.
But just when Maka was thinking this, an extremely fleshy space fluctuation suddenly came from behind the basilisk, followed closely by a ball of fire that illuminated the space.
At the same time, Maka completed a high-speed movement in an instant and retreated dozens of feet from its original position.
This distance was not far, but it was enough for him to avoid the magic flame that shot through the air quickly.
Was the basilisk's low hiss just now actually calling someone? Maka couldn't tell whether this speculation was correct, but at the moment, it was no longer important.
"…Herbo."
After a slight pause, Maka couldn't help curling her lips and said with certainty.
"McLean, it seems that we haven't seen each other for a while? Did you know? I met a successor of the spirit summoning technique in France, which really surprised me... Unfortunately, I was a little busy at the time , I couldn’t try to see how much of the essence of summoning he had inherited... Humph, what a pity, what a pity... "
The familiar voice sounded behind the basilisk and echoed leisurely in the huge sewer. Maka could hear that the other person's tone was full of ease, as if he, Maka McClain, had never been regarded as an enemy by the other party.
Is this the reserve of Haierbo as an ancient wizard? Or does he already feel that Maka is no longer powerful enough to pose a threat to him
On this point, Macca still has no way of knowing for sure.
"Indeed, we haven't seen each other for a while." Maka suddenly put away her expression and said calmly, "It's just that I really don't want to meet you again at all. Haierbo, what are you planning this time? ?”
While he was speaking, the figure behind the basilisk slowly walked out from the side, walked around the huge body of the basilisk, and came to a position not far from Maka.
"Oh," Haierbo said with a chuckle, "Yes, I have a few 'small' plans, but now is not the time to tell them. McClain, don't you think... I should tell you all my ideas in advance If it comes out, will things change and become a lot less interesting?"
"Yeah?"
As for Haierbo's interesting nonsense, Maka could only choose to deal with it, and then just ignore it. As for Haierbo's appearance at this point in time, Maka can only say that his grasp of the timing is really accurate!
If it had been any later, Maka might have taken the basilisk away.
But now he understands that although the possibility of bringing the basilisk back is not completely impossible, the difficulty has increased a lot with the arrival of Haierbo.
"Still don't want to say anything... Haierbo, it's not good for you to hold it back like this!"
Maka's staff shone brightly again.