Path to Transcendence

Chapter 423: Consuming Fragments

It was surprisingly easy to destroy the barrier. His little spatial knife did an excellent job at cutting through the inscriptions that enforced the shield. When he finally laid eyes on the prisoners, his heart clenched at the sight.

There was no life in their eyes. They were completely dead, and most of them seemed barely cognitively aware that they were freed. He had to pull them up and out of the cell physically. Upon closer inspection, he saw how badly some of them were injured. The wounds were relatively fresh, so there weren’t any infections at the very least, but many of them had clearly painful injuries.

It made him angrier at these bandits for the way they treated these people. He glanced over at the group of bandits who had confronted him with outraged eyes. The Tier 4 was practically pissing himself, and Julius scoffed.

This Tier 4 was nothing like the Tier 4s he had faced before. His will was laughably weak, and the man didn’t know how to use his Authority properly. Compared to Edwin, it was like this man was flailing around a twig.

It was why he had such an easy time immobilizing all of them. Of course, his new [Kinetic Energy Control] skill helped him with this as well. The uncommon skill gave him a nice little boost to his technique, and he felt something click into place within his soul.

He recognized this sensation and realized that his skill evolution was right over the horizon. It only needed a slight push to take that last step. Once he made sure that these bandits weren’t about to do anything, he shifted his attention back to these prisoners.

As much as he wanted to heal them at the moment, he didn’t want to do so in front of these bandits. He would wait until they were alone.

As for the bandits, he had other plans for them. Killing them would be a waste.

He reached out his senses and frowned when he felt the entire camp being mobilized. The couple of dozen bandits were searching for him, and it was only a matter of time before more people came into this tent.

He wasn’t too worried, though. From what he was able to sense, these bandits weren’t that good. The Tier 3s weren’t like the students at the school. In fact, he suspected the Tier 2s would be able to take down some of these bandits.

That wasn’t a fair comparison, though. He had slowly come to learn that the students at the Shattered Winter School were all very talented—nothing like these scumbags.

Eventually, a group of bandits found them, and upon entering the tent, they spotted their comrades frozen in place. To their credit, they immediately went on the offensive. Julius didn’t bother to restrict them this time around.

He used pure kinetic energy to fuel his body, throwing himself at them with his bare hands. The sheer speed at which he dashed toward them was on another level than what he had previously used. The training with Cain and the other students was really showing.

The bandits panicked when they saw his speed and attempted to bring up their weapons in time, but were much too slow. Julius sidestepped the weapons with a gentle breeze of kinetic energy and sliced his hand across their necks.

In a single, clean motion, he danced between them and found himself standing a few feet behind the last bandit. A small boom echoed throughout the tent, and the canvas rippled as he halted to a stop.

He then heard four distinct dull thumps as their heads all fell to the ground, blood already pooling on the floor.

He took a brief moment to review his actions and pretended that if Cain were there, what would the man have to say about that last move.

He would probably still say that it was sloppy. Too much excess was wasted at the end.

Julius sighed. He didn’t know if he would ever truly become an expert on kinetic energy. The more he learned about it, the more he understood how difficult it was to master. It was like trying to tame a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or tsunami.

However, if you ever managed to be strong enough to tame it truly, you would lose what made it special. The strength behind it came from the fact that it was untamable. It was savage destruction in its purest form.

Cain seemed to find that balance. Julius always found it fascinating how Cain never displayed any inconceivable power or speed, yet the strength and weight behind each blow was unstoppable. There was no fluctuation or shockwaves when he attacked. That was the level that Julius was hoping he might someday reach. He still needed a lot more time and practice before he got to that point.

He let out a small sigh as he turned back at the prisoners. Some of them appeared to understand that they were no longer imprisoned. Some of them even looked happy to see the death of the bandits; there was a light in their eyes that wasn’t there moments earlier.

There was an issue, though. He had no idea what to do with these prisoners. It was already late, and traveling at night with them didn’t seem like the best idea. Luckily, there were some things right in front of them that could help them in the meantime.

“Take their rings,” he called out to a small number of prisoners who didn’t seem too traumatized.

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None of them moved.

“Take their rings and see if there is anything that we can use,” he repeated. It was only then that they listened to him. He saw two men, a woman, and a young boy run over to the dead bodies and rip off the rings from the dead bodies. They didn’t even flinch at the grisly sight or pool of blood.

He saw them search through the rings and wasn’t too surprised that they weren’t protected with the complex enchantments found on more expensive rings.

“What are we looking for?” The young boy called out curiously. Julius glanced over at him and spotted the array of wounds all across his body. The boy had one nasty-looking welt over one of his cheeks. Julius suspected that it came from one of the bandits.

“Food, supplies, camping stuff. Anything that you think will be helpful to get you guys to a safe place,” Julius explained with a shrug. The boy nodded in understanding and searched through the ring with that in mind.

Julius still sensed all of the surrounding bandits and came to a quick decision. He moved to the entrance of the tent and looked back at the captives. “Stay here, I will be back,” he said firmly. These people nodded quickly, and he saw that there was a slight hint of fear in their auras when he addressed them.

He could deal with that later. For the time being, he was going to take care of the rest of the bandits. He brushed aside the canvas of the tent and was about to exit, but remembered that there were other bandits in the tent that he was restraining.

With a quick pulse of aura, he crushed their wills and souls. He didn’t kill them, but they collapsed to the floor like marionettes without their strings. He would deal with them later. The Tier 4 required a bit more effort, but like the man’s comrades, he wasn’t able to do anything.

Once he felt like they wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon, he left the tent.

He came across a bunch of bandits all running around with no organization, but all bearing weapons. None of them seemed to notice his appearance, though, and he let out a disappointed sigh.

He walked over to a small clearing and swiftly released a pulse of aura. He felt all of the bandits stop their searching and look in his direction. It took longer than he wished, but eventually these bandits all started to swarm where he had pulsed his aura.

It took a minute, but most of the bandits had arrived in the clearing where they spotted Julius standing there casually.

Before they could decide to attack, Julius gave them one last chance. “Drop your weapons and surrender. Those who do will be spared,” he said plainly.

Predictably, this didn’t go over well with these men. Instead, some of them let loose some boisterous laughs and jeered at him before brandishing their weapons.

They made their choices.

The moment the first bandit went in for an attack, Julius was already gone. He had used his kinetic energy to dash forward and slam his void-covered hand into the chest of the man. He didn’t stay still and recalled Cain’s words about constant motion.

Each step had a purpose and fueled his next movement. He tore his way through the group of bandits with apathy. A severed head, a hole in the chest, a ripped out throat. He killed these bandits with cold brutality.

[Kinetic Energy Control], [Barrier of Severance], and [Spatial Crack] were practically the only skills he used. [Kinetic Energy Control] to move around and fuel his strikes. He used the other two in tandem as an offensive weapon.

He had already been offered a skill combination, but he felt like there was still something left. He wanted to leave no stone unturned, and thus he continued to push himself. Testing out different variations of the highly volatile distortion of space coating his hand.

As he was eviscerating these bandits, he noticed that sharpness wasn’t the only thing that went well with [Spatial Crack]. His kinetic energy also had a good synergy when used appropriately.

It was something that Julius was only able to accomplish because of his improvements in kinetic energy.

The bandits weren’t completely helpless. The ones who managed to coat their entire bodies with mana or aura managed to withstand the spatial distortion for a brief moment. It wasn’t enough to prevent the inevitable. However, it was enough that he was forced to enhance the skillʼs power. However, when he directly added some kinetic energy to the mix, it was then that it became truly ferocious.

The first time he actually infused his kinetic energy this way was quite explosive. The distortion over his hand collapsed. He quickly unanchored it from his hand and teleported away.

Despite his swift reaction, he was still hit by the explosion. Of course, the bandits nearby were hurt even worse, but the power of his words proved his point, and he didn’t hesitate to try again. This time around, he was more prepared for the influx of power and barely managed to stay in control.

The sharpness and kinetic aspects went hand in hand. Both were forces of destruction and aided one another. It took everything [Spatial Crack] had to contain such a massive amount of power. But when it did, the result was glorious.

The previous resistance when hitting something coated with mana or aura was practically gone. His kinetic energy was like a battering ram that cracked apart the initial defenses, and his Sharpness Concept easily tore them apart.

He became so engrossed in his experimental technique that he found himself at a loss when he no longer had a target to practice on. He looked around and spotted no more bandits around him. They were all dead or near death. Some of them were gurgling and desperately clawing the dirt as they choked on their blood.

He was about to finish them off and put them out of their misery when he got dinged by a notification.

Synergy detected. Would you like to evolve [Spatial Crack] and [Barrier of Severance] into a single skill?

Notice: Additional modifications have been detected…

Additional Concepts have been detected…

Recalculating skill evolution path…

Fragments of previously offered skills had been detected. Would you like to consume the fragment(s) to potentially enhance the combined skill? Notice: Consumption of these skill fragments will mean you will no longer be able to choose these skills in the future.

Julius read the notification with a smile. The last part bothered him a little bit, but he quickly delved into his soul and spotted what the notification was talking about. A thin, dim line connected the previous dull pearls that represented the unchosen skills.

The only skill that he was worried about losing was still untouched. [Spirit Fortification] was not connected by this soul string. However, skills like [Kinetic Restriction] and [Reckless Stampede] were connected.

To be honest, he didn’t want either at this point. Thus, he didn’t care about losing them. He tilted his head thoughtfully for a moment, and before he could start to think too hard, he selected yes.

He let out a silly grin. He couldn’t wait to see what kind of skill would be awaiting him once the process was done.