Path to Transcendence

Chapter 399: Not Funny Anymore

Julius didn’t do too much to help them out. They appeared to have things handled for the most part. He only took out the monsters that the others hadn’t sensed. It was a simple task to snipe them out of the air. Most of them were Tier 3s, and he hadn’t detected any Tier 4s making their way toward them.

Things were going well until a sudden explosion rocked the field. Thankfully, they were far enough away that they weren’t injured, but he looked up to see that the missing Tier 5 monster had made its appearance.

While hidden by whatever stealth skill it had been using, the beast released a violent attack onto the Tier 5 that exploded everything within a hundred feet of the Tier 5. The shockwave alone injured the nearby Tier 4s and the few Tier 3s brave enough to stay around such powerful people.

The explosion had saved the other Tier 5 lightning monster, who had been getting slowly whittled down by Simon, the Tier 5 from the Adventurer’s Guild. And now that there were two Tier 5s for the man to deal with, it became much more dangerous.

This new monster was quite fascinating. It was all grey and looked similar to a goblin in terms of physical features, but Julius could tell from the way it managed to disappear that it was ridiculously fast. Additionally, it seemed to have the ability to attack with blasts of highly condensed aura.

This is what had caused the earlier explosion and what Simon was having to deal with.

Julius was so distracted by the ongoing fight between the three Tier 5s that he almost didn’t detect the incoming missiles of mana coming from the sky.

He quickly realized that these missiles weren’t from a Tier 3 and promptly created a dozen spikes over his shoulder. He didn’t wait a moment longer and sent them screaming toward the oncoming missiles, using his advanced control of his mana to intercept them.

He then exploded them once they were close enough to the missiles. He was pretty successful, as the explosions were sufficient to destabilize the projectiles. Only a few managed to get through, and he quickly created a barrier over his arms, blasting himself upward to block the missiles with his body. Whoever had sent the attacks was strong, and he grunted as he barely managed to enforce his barrier as the projectiles slammed into him with a deafening boom.

He heard the others shout in panic as they saw him get blasted, but calmed down when the dust cleared and he was alright. Julius looked off in the distance where the attack had come from and spotted a man floating in the air just above the trees.

He wasn’t that surprised to see another human attacking them. He already knew that this was a part of someone’s plan, but he was surprised to see that he was the target. While he knew that the Conclave and Clan Genshen wanted him dead, he didn’t think they would go this far to kill him after House Violet’s warning.

He also wondered how they figured out where he was. Did someone manage to tell them?

Julius was about to zip over to the mage off in the distance to get some answers when he froze.

It was only because he had been worried for their safety, but he had dedicated a piece of his mind to watch over his friends. That was the only reason he managed to perceive a small spatial ripple directly in the middle of his friends. He didn’t even give himself time to think. He subconsciously used his Space Concept to connect with this spatial ripple and used his aura to delay whatever was trying to come through.

Then, he used [Void Step] and appeared directly in front of the spatial ripple. It was only then that he released the restraint he had over the pinhole in space. A thin man swinging a sword appeared from this spatial ripple, and the man’s eyes widened in shock when his sword sliced into Julius’s chest instead of his original target.

However, before the assailant could react, Julius had already shoved his blade into the man’s torso in return with a blade of aura woven mana.

As he was doing this, he couldn’t help but feel immensely surprised that someone was able to use a spatial skill inside the forest. As far as he knew, teleportation was hard to do inside the barrier. And while he had heard that short-range teleports like [Instantaneous Step] were allowed, the distance was heavily restricted. The fact that this man was able to appear from outside his sphere of perception meant the distance was greater than a couple of hundred feet.

There had to be some trick. However, he shook his head, reminding himself to stay focused on the attacker.

Speaking of the attacker, they still had Julius’s blade stuck in their chest, but they also reacted quickly.

Julius was staggered backward when they sent a concentrated blast of mana infused with their Authority at Julius. The moment they did this, it became clear that this man had a Concept revolving around Death or Corruption. Thankfully, it wasn’t that effective since Julius wasn’t there anymore.

He had used another [Void Step] to reappear at the man’s back and slammed into the man’s chest once more. The man let out another groan of pain but whipped around quickly to grab hold of Julius’s arm.

The moment the attacker grabbed hold of his arm, Julius felt as their Authority wrapped around him and tried to prevent him from escaping with his spatial skill. However, if Savath couldn’t stop him from teleporting away, then this man was sorely mistaken to believe that he could.

Julius vanished into thin air and reappeared above the man. Wings of mana were formed from the thick bands of mana he had been preparing since the monsters attacked, and he kept himself afloat with kinetic energy.

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The others who had been shocked by the sudden attack had already backed away from the enemy and were in the middle of throwing everything they had at the man. Julius felt the attacker was about to activate the same spatial skill he had used to teleport close, but Julius chose to use this moment to explode the blade he had left inside the man’s chest.

The combination of his aura and compressed nature of his mana meant the explosion was enormous. His aura also ensured that the man’s skill was disrupted at the last moment, leaving him desperately activating a barrier to protect himself from the deluge of attacks.

The barrier was strong and withstood these attacks as they slammed into it. Not even Derek’s lightning-covered spear, which he had thrown, was enough to pierce the barrier. Still, this wasn’t too much of a surprise because the man was a Tier 4 after all.

However, Julius felt Lily send out a powerful surge of psychic energy that caused the man to stumble, and for a brief moment, his control over his barrier wavered.

Julius used this opening to send a spike of mana he formed from the tip of one of his wings. The man was well aware of the threat that Julius posed and noticed the attack with an alarmed face. Unlike the others’ attacks, the man must have believed there was a chance that Julius would actually break through his barrier and attempted to use a movement skill to evade the spike.

However, Julius split the spike into several smaller pieces. Since the man wasn’t bothering to use a barrier, the smaller attacks would be more effective. Julius controlled these shards to track down the Tier 4.

The thin man was quick, though, and danced out of the way in an impressive display of acrobatics. Despite Julius’s best attempts, the man managed to dodge most of the shards. Only two shards lodged themselves into the attackerʼs arm when he lifted it to protect his face.

The attacker also appeared to learn the previous lesson because Julius watched as the man used his aura to rip out the shards from his arms before Julius could detonate them.

Julius watched as his opponent breathed heavily, bleeding from the injuries that Julius had already inflicted. The chest wound was quite bad, and despite the man stemming the bleeding with his mana, it was dramatically affecting his movements. It was only because of Tier 4’s innate endurance and vitality that he was still alive.

Julius was about to dash in and finish him off when he was forced to blast himself away from more missiles. His wings made maneuvering through the air much easier, and missiles detonated in the air, mostly missing him. The sole missile that had made it to him, he blocked with one of his wings, and the explosion barely fazed him.

However, as he was distracted, he noticed that the injured man was trying to retreat. Julius quickly slammed his will onto the attacker and ripped apart the spatial skill. There were a couple of reasons why he was able to do this, despite the attacker having an Authority enforcing his skills. One was that Julius’s Space Concept seemed to excel in this sort of thing. The chaotic spatial nature of the Concept naturally wanted to destabilize other spatial structures. The other was that a few remnants of his ruinous aura were still embedded in the man’s chest from the exploding blade.

More importantly, Julius’s willpower was just stronger than this thin manʼs willpower. If not for his Authority, Julius would have already killed him.

The sword-wielding assailant realized that he would be able to escape too easily and started to run away using his movement skill. Julius dodged another attack from the mage far away and sent a barrage of spikes at the injured man below before he could escape.

However, a powerful protective barrier suddenly appeared around the retreating swordsman. Julius immediately sensed that this barrier wasn’t of the man’s own making. The mana signature was too different. It was from someone else.

The attacker ran off into the forest where the mage was stationed and where Julius suspected the rest of the man’s team was hiding.

As much as Julius wanted to pursue the attacker, he chose not to. Instead, he flew back toward his friends, who were still alarmed after being attacked so suddenly by people a whole tier above them.

Derek, in particular, seemed a bit quieter than normal. Julius was able to feel Derek’s heart racing, although the scion’s focus skill was undoubtedly activated. He didn’t blame Derek for his reaction either.

After all, Julius had been wrong when he believed he had been the target of the attack. He hadn’t been the target at all. The real target was Derek, and if not for Julius sensing the small spatial ripple at the last moment, the sword-wielding attacker would have likely sliced off Derek’s head before anyone noticed, and Derek realized this as well.

Julius met his older friendʼs gaze and received a grateful nod in return. It was unnecessary, though. Julius didn’t need to be thanked for saving his friends.

What he needed to do was kill the fuckers who thought they could try kill his friend and get away with it.

***

Eris POV

She and her teammates watched in stunned silence as the young boy beat the crap out of the Tier 4 who had suddenly attacked them. She had seen some strong people and liked to consider herself as one of them, but she had never seen a Tier 3 handle someone an opponent a whole tier stronger with such ease.

She was barely able to track his moves, and his constructs obviously had enough power to hurt Tier 4. In addition to all of that, he was able to fly. An ability that was rare even amongst Tier 4s. She didn’t even want to talk about the teleportation skill he displayed. She didn’t know if her mind could comprehend any more surprises.

After Julius fought off the attack, he stood there silently, staring calmly in the direction the assailant had run off to. However, she could barely breathe as she was subjected to the black haired boy’s terrifying aura.

He wasn’t bothering to hide it anymore and was blanketing the entire area with it. The pressure from the aura made it more difficult for her to control her skills. It wasn’t just her either. The rest of her team also experienced this. However, he must have noticed their discomfort because he glanced their way, and suddenly the pressure lifted.

“Doren, this isn’t funny anymore,” she heard the boy mutter softly, but his anger was brimming just over the surface. “I don’t know if this is your game that you are playing, but I won’t play along any further.”

She thought he was going crazy, talking to himself like that, but then she was startled when she heard a stranger respond out of the blue.

“Donʼt be mad at me. I didn’t send them,” the man who appeared next to her said with an amused tone. She was so startled that she almost attacked him out of instinct. While she didn’t actually attack, she couldn’t say that about Koenn.

The big tank was already on edge and didn’t hesitate to attack when another possible enemy appeared in the middle of their group. However, the stranger didn’t even flinch when Koenn’s axe slammed him with a dull thud. He merely glanced at Koenn like he was an annoying fly and ignored him.

She was just glad that the man hadnʼt decided to erase Koenn where he stood for his attempt. It was clear he was more than capable of doing that.

Eris backed away in fear, swiftly understanding that this stranger was someone far stronger than someone they would be able to handle. She could only hope he didn’t decide to hurt them.