Path to Transcendence

Chapter 521: Consequences

Cadius. That was their name. It was nice to have a label for this person or thing bullying Julius. Now, he could curse at Cadius in his mind properly.

As a matter of fact, he threw in some colorful curses at Cadius now that he knew his name. He made sure he emphasized them as much as he could in his mind. It was likely that the man could hear Julius’s thoughts or at least his intentions through his aura. That was Julius’s prediction.

He couldn’t help but smile when he saw Cadius’s eye twitch during Julius’s internal cursing. Cadius might or might not know what Julius was saying exactly, but at the very least, he knew that it wasn’t anything nice.

However, the man didn’t do anything to Julius. He was too focused on the newcomer, standing behind Julius. Unlike his previous attitude, Cadius showed the first sign of nervousness and uncertainty. Whoever this newcomer was, Cadius must have known them and didn’t want to anger them further.

Julius took pleasure in knowing that and cursed at the man a few more times until he felt better.

It was only then that he turned around to see who had spoken and who had stopped Cadius from crushing Julius’s soul.

The person was very similar to Cadius in that he looked human, but also not human at the same time. He had the general form of a human, but several of his features were very interesting. His eyes resembled Cadius’s rainbow colored eyes, but instead of iridescent light, they were pure white. There was a small ring of sparkling black light inside the glowing white irises.

However, the feature that led Julius to believe they weren’t totally human was their height. They were very tall. Not just like Gabriel tall either. They had to be almost ten feet tall and towered over Julius and Cadius.

With pitch black hair and a dangerous aura, Julius could see why Cadius didn’t want to start any trouble with this man. He looked scary.

“It is not what you think, Kaelther,” Cadius tried to say swiftly.

“Oh? Because it looks like you have injured this yearʼs guests and almost crushed the soul of this one.”

“I was just having some fun,” Cadius said with an awkward laugh.

The man, Kaelther, gave Cadius a flat stare. “Just some fun, huh?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t like I broke any of the rules. The ones I killed had the audacity to touch me,” Cadius pointed out to the tall man.

Kaelther’s eyes glimmered dangerously, and Julius felt a new pressure slowly wash over him. However, he could tell right away that this pressure wasn’t targeted toward him. Instead, it was focused on Cadius, and Julius saw the other figure start to sweat nervously.

“You might not have broken any rules, but you are toeing the line very heavily. I can understand you killing the person who grabbed you, but you also didn’t need to kill the other dozen people. More importantly, this young man didn’t seem to have done anything to you. Yet, you were just in the middle of crushing his spirit,” Kaelther stated nonsensically.

“I was not about to crush his spirit,” Cadius argued, but before he could finish all of his words, Julius watched as the man writhed in pain and collapsed to his knees.

“Don’t lie to me,” Kaelther said softly.

“Okay, okay. I might have gone too far. I’m sorry,” the rainbow colored man wheezed out.

“The only reason why I haven’t punished you more severely is that you are still needed to complete the trial. However, be prepared for an appropriate punishment when it is finished. Do you understand?”

Cadius nodded swiftly and bowed deeply, not daring to look up at the other tall man.

“Good, now get inside and prepare for the trial. If you cause any more issues, I will personally make adjustments to your bindings. And trust me, you will not enjoy what I have in mind,” the man threatened.

Julius watched as the color faded from Cadius’s face and hid the smile on his face when he saw the guy tuck tail and run away, back into the temple.

Only when Julius and the tall, scary man were alone did he let out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, Mr. Kaelther,” Julius said gratefully.

Kaelther didn’t even glance at Julius and kept his eyes on Cadius walking through the doorway. Only when Cadius had disappeared inside did the large man glance down at Julius. His glowing white eyes were scanning Julius, and Julius could feel the man’s senses brush against his soul.

A slight frown appeared on the man’s face.

“It’s just Kaelther,” he said brusquely.

“I appreciate it, Kaelther,” Julius said with a slight bow.

“Here, take this,” the man said suddenly. A bottle appeared in his hands, and he passed it down to Julius. The bottle looked comically small in the large man’s hands.

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“What’s this?” Julius asked curiously as he examined the bottle.

“It is a diluted soul nurturing treasure. Normally, it is meant for Tier 4s and Tier 5s, but it should be diluted enough for you to consume safely,” Kaelther explained.

Julius must have shown some hesitation because the man sighed. “Don’t worry, if I wanted to poison you or hurt you, I wouldn’t have stopped Cadius from having his fun.”

“Is that his way of having fun? Torturing people?” Julius asked before realizing how rude his tone was.

“Torturing? No, Cadius normally enjoys bullying the weak, but he rarely tortures anyone.”

“So what? Am I just that special?” Julius asked sarcastically.

“Yeah.”

Julius opened his mouth and closed it slowly. He hadn’t been expecting such a definitive answer.

Kaelther flattened his lips when he saw Julius’s reaction. “Don’t pretend to be shocked. You managed to withstand his aura, and he took that as a challenge, and so when you didn’t give up, he decided to crush you.”

“What about the rules he was talking about? Should that prevent him from attacking all of us with his aura?” Julius asked.

“No, if passive aura radiation counted as a legitimate attack, then most high-tier individuals would constantly be attacking others. It’s not a perfect system, but that is why I intervened before he could go too far.”

“I think he might have already gone too far,” he said with a grimace, and looked around at the other people. Now that Cadius was gone, he would have thought they would have gotten back up to their feet. However, to his concern, nobody so much as twitched a muscle.

Everyone was lying on their faces, completely unmoving.

He immediately focused his attention on where his friends were. He quickly found them and ran over to them, ignoring Kaelther for the time being.

He flipped Aubrey over and noticed the blood smeared over her face. A surge of anger rippled through him when he saw that she still wasn’t moving. The only thing that calmed him down was that she appeared healthy to his senses. He didn’t sense any soul damage or any other severe injuries.

He quickly checked over Edgar and Derek as well. To his relief, neither of them had any problems.

“Why aren’t they moving? What is wrong with them?” Julius asked Kaelther.

“That is because of me. I am keeping them asleep for the time being. Partly because I don’t want them to see me.”

“See you? What about me? I am seeing you right now,” he pointed out.

“It was unavoidable with what Cadius had done to you,” the man briefly explained.

“What about the other part?”

“What?”

Julius tilted his head. “You said it was partly because you wanted them to avoid seeing you. What was the other reason?”

“Ah. The other reason is that I can help soothe any residual damage they might have experienced from Cadius. What they experienced wasn’t as bad as what you experienced, so they should be able to heal quite easily. As a matter of fact, they might be glad that Cadius put them through such an ordeal. Those who overcome this will come out stronger.”

“Oh, I guess that is… okay,” he said lamely.

“Yeah, now drink. I don’t have a lot of time.”

Julius glanced at the bottle in his hands. “I think my soul is fine.”

All he got was a dark glare in response. “Your soul is most definitely not fine. I just checked and saw the state it is in. I don’t even want to know what you have done in the past to make it look like that. I’ve seen chimeras with better souls.”

Julius took some time to look at his soul. He delved deep into his soul space and examined it.

The damage was quite extensive. He could see cracks from where Cadius had shattered his defenses, but it wasn’t too bad in his opinion. His soul had seen worse. As a matter of fact, his healing skill was discreetly healing it already. The process was slow, but Julius believed that with some rest, he would be perfectly fine.

“Yeah, I am good,” Julius said and returned the bottle to the man. He didn’t think the person was out to hurt him, but he also didn’t want to consume any mysterious potions when he felt like he was fine.

However, it would appear the man didn’t think the same because a strong field surrounded Julius. He wasn’t able to move a single inch of his body despite struggling with all his might. His mana and kinetic energy weren’t responding either.

He tried to break out, but when he tried to blast his soul, he felt his technique get wiped out.

“Are you an idiot? Stop doing that. You are going to die if you keep on doing this. God, Terradon was right about you.”

“Terradon?” Julius asked curiously as he fought against the field. However, he couldn’t control his body at this point. His arm moved on its own, uncapping the bottle against his wishes.

“Yes, he said he had met an annoying idiot the other day,” Kaelther said with a look of disappointment.

“Oh! Mr. Spirit?” Julius said with realization. He was still talking to the man, but also struggling to stop himself from pouring the fluid into his mouth. It was fought in vain because there was nothing he could do as the liquid pooled into his mouth. It wasn’t even able to spit it out; the man took control of this substance and shoved it down Julius’s throat.

“Terradon is not a spirit,” Kaelther said flatly as he continued to force-feed Julius.

Julius choked out and coughed when all the liquid was down the hatch. The hold over him was gone, and he wiped his tongue with his hand.

“Ugh! Gross. This stuff can’t be good for me,” Julius said with disgust, spitting out the remnants of the liquid that clung to his tongue. It tasted like someone had poured diesel down his throat.

“It is. So bear with it,” Kaelther said with a roll of his glowing white eyes.

”If he’s not a spirit, then what is he?” Julius asked after he unsuccessfully got the taste out of his mouth.

“You can ask him yourself if you meet him again. Now enough questions, I have stuff I need to do before you all enter the trial.”

“You are in charge of the trial?”

Kaelther didn’t say a word, but he stared sharply at Julius, as if questioning his intelligence for asking another question.

“You should take your friends inside before the others wake up. Teaming up to prevent people from entering isn’t very honorable, but it isn’t against the rules either. Cadius shouldn’t have interfered,” Kaelther said, but paused and gave Julius a weird look. “Unless you want to fight all of the other competitors. For some reason, I would not be surprised if you chose that option.”

Julius felt offended by the insinuation.

Of course, he wouldn’t be fighting all of these people when he had to take care of his friends. However, if he were to be alone… that would be a different matter entirely. He might have been convinced to give it a try.