Sam looked at the Mountain Master carefully.
He felt like something is wrong with him. His behavior in the battle right now is completely abnormal. After the first death, the mountain master acted like something serious had happened. He showed the classic signs of a self-absorbed individual who values his life way too much.
But there is this anger that he has whenever he was called a rodent. He is almost as angry as Sam when he was called a bastard.
He disregarded the consequence of the torturous feeling he gets when he dies.
Sam can even understand that. In fact, the usage of the term rodent is because Demon Soul swordsman told Sam that the Mountain Master will be pissed off because of this.
It is because in the past, the Mountain Master used to dig around the ground to set up traps to capture and kill his enemies. Just like how a rodent, particularly a rat or a bandicoot digs around in the ground and rocks.
That is part of his dirty laundry.
Sam’s thought was to rile him up so that he can take advantage of him.
This is expected.
But when he thought about the crazy suicidal move that was made by this guy in the last battle, he felt that something is weird.
The look, the actions, and the whole demeanor seemed to be of a person that is definitely not the Mountain Master. He remembered the Demon Soul swordsman’s description of the Mountain Master. It says that he is not really a normal guy and acts very extreme when he is cornered.
But this is way more than just acting extreme. That suicidal move is not just coming from being pushed to the corner. After all, he definitely knew that he is not going to really die in that battle, he will just experience the feeling of death and come back to the board.
Sam’s thoughts ran wild. He has a few theories that are popping in his head, but he has to verify them bit by bit in the next upcoming battles.
For the next few moves, both of them avoided going to combat. Sam observed Mountain Master’s behavior in this time frame.
It gradually changed. From being in the panicked stage at the start as an after-effect of experiencing the feeling of death, it slowly changed to a slightly calm person.
These few moves led up to a large setup of possible chain reactions and Sam suddenly decided to take it to combat.
Now, no matter who wins or loses, the next few moves can all lead up to constant battles.
Sam decided to analyze how he will react in these next few battles.
In the first battle, once again, Sam won easily as pawns. It is almost like with that limited cultivation, the Mountain master is unable to do much at all. His energy attacks are not enough to deal with Sam.
He just panicked and became angry when Sam called him rodent. But in the next battle in which Sam went against a bishop with his pawn, his demeanor changed once again.
The Mountain Master picked on Sam bit by bit. He started making Sam suffer through different kinds of pain as he torturously made him endure different attacks that are focused on particular parts of his body.
This is also a bit expected, except the transition is a bit too fast. There is no gradual change in his behavior. It is a bit too sudden. After that battle was over, it is once again battle as equals with Sam’s bishop against Mountain Master’s bishop.
Unlike how they were completely outmatched when both of them were pawns, the Mountain Master presented a bit of competition when both of them are bishops.
Sam understood one thing from this.
Most of the moves and attacks from the Mountain Master are dependent on his cultivation level. He cannot perform most of his techniques that are effective in this level of battle unless he has a certain level of energy that is directly related to the cultivation.
As for the change of character, Sam also noticed that only when Sam toyed with the Mountain Master using his superior skill and technique did that weird suicidal and maniacal side is popping up.
He wanted to test the hypothesis even more, and that only reinforced his belief.
“This asshole has multiple personalities.”
Sam muttered to himself as he just finished another combat.
That is the conclusion he came to. Mountain Master has multiple personalities. One of them is weak and cowardly, one is tricky and cunning, one is sadistic with a massive superiority complex, one is rageful and insecure about his tricky and cunning personality, and finally, the overly prideful and angry suicidal personality.
Of course, the basic personality of the Mountain Master that is known to the whole world, the mysterious intellectual personality that hides all of this other shit is also there.
One can have all these emotions and it is even possible for someone to feel all of them one by one with changing situations, but the change to be as radical as this guy. Most of these changes are based on the level of strength that this guy has in various situations and this might be the first time that he has gone up and down in power like now.
Of course, there is also a relative factor of his power when compared to Sam in various types of combats.
As a pawn, he is weak and helpless, but as a bishop, rook, or knight, he is powerful compared to Sam’s pawn and a decent equal compared to Sam’s bishop, rook, and knight.
They didn’t go to the queen and king part yet, so Sam wouldn’t know how he would react, but he can estimate that it could be similar to the one that he had when they are battling as bishop, rook, and knight.
When he jumped on to the next combat he didn’t fight. Instead, he just stood there and looked at the Mountain Master calmly.
When Mountain Master tried to attack him, Sam focused on proper defense without speaking or doing anything.
Mountain Master didn’t manage to do must. Sam’s defense is impeccable. It is like a game of skeet shooting. He is hitting every target that is flying toward him.
And as time passed on, Sam slowly observed the shift of personalities in just one combat.
When Sam was passive at the start, the Mountain Master enjoyed himself as he tried to push him around. Later when he realized that he couldn’t do much and Sam provoked him with the word rodent here and then, he became rageful.
After that, Sam became a bit more active as he crushed the attacks that came at him, instead of just defending them casually. This made him a bit maniacal as he tried to perform some suicidal attacks.
At that moment, Sam used extreme attacks and started dominating him. The personality immediately shifted to a personality that is cowardly and weak.
Sam finished the battle off and went back to the board.
He looked at the Mountain Master with intrigue. This is the first time he came across someone like this. He has met some people with multiple personalities in his previous life. But here in this world, it is even rarer.
Because the souls are strengthened with their cultivation, he has barely seen any people with unique mental states.
For someone this unique to exist, Sam couldn’t help but feel interested. It is almost like he found a really good test subject.
His researcher mindset is kicking in.
But he shook those thoughts off of his head instantly. He knew that he cannot keep the Mountain Master alive.
Even if he is idiotic enough to enter the chess board directly without caring much as he was so full of himself, Sam has no thoughts of keeping him here. A man of this capacity and this level of intellectual capacity is an enemy Sam cannot have.
And with this personality situation, Sam highly doubts if he could even suppress all of these personalities and make him submissive.
On top of that, there is another warning from the Demon Soul Swordsman to not ever trust the Mountain Master even with a soul contract.
The rumor is that this guy can even find a way to break the soul contract with his tricks. Sam doesn’t know how, but Demon Soul Swordsman believes in it, so Sam just eliminated the thoughts of research and then focused on dealing with this guy.
In the next combat.
His demeanor changed. Killing intent surged out of his body as he took out the Shadow sword while both shadow and space elements are flowing throughout his body. He disappeared from the spot and reappeared right behind the Mountain Master.
Mountain Master got ready with a decent barrier. The slash was deflected a bit, but the spatial and shadow energy managed to leave a slight nick on his back with the energy corrupting the wound a bit.
