Path to Transcendence

Chapter 581: One Down

He heard the screams down from below as the brief fight had already caused chaos on the streets. He took slow, shaky breaths as he desperately tried to heal his soul as quickly as he could.

The rest of his body was fine; on that front, he was uninjured. However, his soul was a mess. He only needed a brief moment to see just how much damage it had sustained from Casey’s attack on top of his own forced cancellation of the crown’s technique.

[Phoenix Renewal] had already shown that it was capable of healing his soul to some extent, but it was normally a slow process that took several days to heal a little damage. Only Freya had been able to heal his soul with any kind of swiftness, and she wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

As blood trickled down his face, he couldn’t help but admit that he was in a bad place. There were five other people who had arrived after Casey attacked him. They were all Tier 4s and powerful ones at that. Their authorities were already working together to pressure him from all sides.

He could barely breathe due to their power. It was only because he created a protective bubble of his own aura that he was able to keep them at bay. However, his usage of his aura further strained his already damaged soul.

The only thing he had going for him was that they were under a time constraint. There was no way you could attack someone like this in the capital without someone noticing. If they wanted to finish him off, they would need to do it fast. Before someone stronger showed up and stopped them.

Although, to be honest, he was also under a time constraint himself. His soul was barely stabilized, and it was only due to his skill that it hadn’t collapsed already. He needed to get to Freya as soon as possible. She should be able to heal him.

The problem was the five people hovering in the air, using their authorities and various skills to stay aloft.

“How is she?” One of the attackers asked the guy who had stabbed Julius and retrieved Casey. Julius felt the man’s aura and recognized him as the one who tried to bind him with magic earlier. The man was wearing a simple set of dark blue robes and had two shimmering silver bracelets on his wrists.

The dagger wielder was pouring a healing potion that was radiating pure life mana down her throat urgently.

“Bad. She needs to get to a healer immediately.”

The girl was indeed in pretty bad condition. Julius had been semi-confident that he had killed her; her face was almost completely caved in. It was actually a bit surprising that her head hadnʼt exploded like a watermelon from his strikes in the first place. He hadnʼt been taking it easy, and he had killed plenty of other powerful Tier 3s and even a small number of Tier 4s with that much force.

If he had the chance, he was going to make sure that he would finish her off.

He was a petty person. She had almost killed him and, even worse, interrupted his pastry time. That was unforgivable.

The binding mage waved at his comrade. “Then go, we will handle him. Make sure she stays alive. We can’t afford to lose her.”

The dagger wielder didn’t look happy about that command, but he nodded anyway and made a move to leave.

However, Julius wasn’t going to allow him to get away with Casey so easily. The fact that they outright said how important Casey was only made his decision that much easier. He channeled some mana into his [Void Step] and prepared to attack the dagger wielder.

His actions didn’t go unnoticed by the other four enemies, and he felt their authorities come crashing down on him, trying to delay his skill. Unfortunately for them, just because Julius’s soul was injured didn’t mean his willpower was suddenly weak.

It was still powerful enough to ignore their attack, and [Void Step] wasn’t a simple skill to stop in the first place. He vanished and reappeared right in front of Casey and the dagger wielder. He already constructed a blade of blue flames in his right hand, aiming straight for her skull.

His sudden appearance shocked the dagger wielder, and he desperately threw up several barriers of his own, pulling Casey out of the way. Julius’s blade barely missed, nicking the side of her face with his blade, before coming to a stop when the man blocked the weapon with his bare skin.

The knife stabbed into his forearm, and the Tier 4 used a shit ton of mana to blast Julius away. Julius used his kinetic energy to absorb and deflect most of the force, saving him from being ripped apart by the Tier 4ʼs powerful mana. But it still sent him flying backwards.

He spotted the other Tier 4s converging on him again, but this time around, he felt some kind of field erupt from the binding mage. It felt like an isolation barrier that would prevent him from escaping with his spatial skill.

Julius’s mind raced as he thought of the best way to handle this. He didn’t sense any guards or people coming to save him yet. It was possible that these people did something to delay the guards or lock down the area briefly.

If that was the case, then Julius was going to be on his own for longer than he had been planning. He needed to play this differently.

Hence, he decided to be a little cunning. He semi-activated his [Void Step], but allowed the isolation barrier to rip apart his skill before it could activate. He could practically feel their satisfaction when he wasn’t able to teleport away.

He cranked [Sage of Savagery] to its maximum output. The agony in his soul vanished as everything in the world turned monochrome except for the colors of mana and aura. A savage grin appeared on his face as he created small thruster-like constructs over his body. He then used these thrusters, powered by his kinetic energy, to adjust his position in mid-air.

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Unlike his usual flying, this technique allowed him to control his body’s position in the sky. He used [Absolute Spatial Perception] to calculate the trajectories of the four various attacks, all collapsing on his person.

A black mass of mana barely scraped his chest. An invisible blast of sharpened mana tore the flesh of his shoulder. He narrowly managed to create a plate of mana to block the arrow of ice that almost pierced his eye. The arrow shattered the barrier, but he was able to move his head to the side so that the arrow only sliced open his cheek.

Then he turned himself around and covered his leg with as much sturdy mana as possible, as he blocked the sword strike that threatened to bisect him at the waist.

He couldn’t feel the pain of his soul, but he was able to feel it cracking from the burden he was subjecting it to. However, he reminded himself that he could worry about it later and ripped apart his constructs covering his body, molding them into spikes of mana.

His crown was already converting his fire mana into ruinous flames, infusing the spikes with these deadly flames. He didn’t waste a single second and immediately shot these spikes at his attackers.

A dense shield of ice mana formed in front of these attackers, intercepting the spikes. His spikes were really strong, though, and Julius saw the ice magic user look surprised at the force of the impact. Unfortunately, Julius wasn’t able to send another group of spikes at the mage. He was forced to throw himself backwards as more attacks threatened to slam into him.

He was about to create more constructs to protect himself, but he staggered and felt something interfering with his mana. He glanced down and noticed the black mass of mana that had hit him before was starting to grow in size. It was somehow affecting his mana control, and with a brutal twist of his aura, the black mass was destroyed. He felt his soul shudder once more.

However, this wasted time. The time that Julius didn’t have. The attacks slammed into him and the last-second protections he threw up. He was able to avoid the sword and invisible blast of sharpened mana again, but this time there were dozens of ice arrows heading straight for him.

His crown reacted for him and blasted out a wave of flames in all directions, melting most of the arrows before they could reach him. The ones that made it through still slammed into his chest with enough force that they broke his ribs.

The only reason he hadn’t become a pincushion was the sturdy barrier he placed over his skin at the last second. Still, the attack was enough to send him crashing into a nearby building. The enchantments around the building only made the collision hurt more, and he grunted as he pulled himself out of the wreckage, avoiding the horde of attacks lancing down on him.

The building was absolutely destroyed by these attacks, and it was sheer luck that nobody was inside. He let out a sigh of relief, and before more attacks could rain down on him, he blasted back into the air with his kinetic energy.

Where are the guards? How hasn’t anyone come to investigate yet? He thought to himself with a groan. His soul was still holding together, but using his skills and aura with this kind of output was only worsening his condition. Even more concerning was that his healing skill wasnʼt working like normal. It was completely focused on his damaged soul that it wasnʼt able to heal his broken ribs, even if he wanted to.

He needed to do something.

He looked around as he structured a plan. He flattened his lips as he came up with a decent idea. With an additional burst of kinetic energy, he headed toward the edge of the isolation barrier the man had set up, but it expanded as he moved. They clearly didn’t have any plans of letting him get out of it. But this also provided him with an opportunity.

He still hadn’t shown his teleportation skill’s special little trick yet. He continued to compound his kinetic energy usage, using [Kinetic Shell] and even [Graveforce Impact] to boost his speed. He ripped through the sky, toward the edge of the barrier. As he launched himself upwards, he took note of several very powerful explosions of mana booming in the distance.

What else was going on in the capital? He asked himself with a frown.

His sudden burst of speed surprised them, and they desperately tried to keep up. The person who threw the invisible attacks and the mage who created the isolation barrier kept up with him easily.

The swordsman was clearly getting some kind of support to stay in the air and was forced to stay behind. As did the ice mage. They weren’t sitting back idly, though. They were throwing attacks at Julius as he increased the distance between them.

A crescent of light narrowly missed his back, and dozens of arrows forced him to weave in the air. This allowed the other mages to catch up, and Julius suddenly felt a bubble of invisible mana surround him.

His danger senses were blaring at him, and he immediately sent a concentrated needle of aura forward, piercing the bubble before it could trap him. He was forced to confront the willpower of the technique’s owner, but he used a small burst of willpower and used this distraction to slip right past the enemy’s focus.

He crashed against the bubble, but the hole he created with the needle was enough that he was able to crash through the bubble before it could trap him. Unfortunately, this gave the binding mage enough time to finish his own preparations.

The barrier, which had been steadily increasing as Julius flew higher, suddenly shrank and turned hazy black. He had been pretty sure that the barrier hadn’t been physical in nature, but he quickly found out that wasn’t the case anymore. Not only that, but he also sensed that there was another barrier in place beyond the mage’s own, so even if he escaped, he would have been forced to deal with the other barrier.

He wasn’t able to stop himself in time, as the black barrier approached his vision. He slammed into the barrier like a bird smashing into a window. He absorbed as much kinetic energy as he could, but there was too much momentum, and he crashed into the barrier with an earshattering crack. He felt several of his bones shatter, and a couple of his organs rupture.

The binding mage who had done this immediately capitalized on this and wrapped his arms around his battered body. Thick runes of magic spawned all around him as he tried to imprison Julius with some kind of skill. Massive amounts of black energy also flooded into Julius’s body, blackening his skin with ugly, ink-like marks. He could feel the black energy was killing him at a rapid pace, despite his aura doing its best to destroy this energy.

Julius channeled some mana to use his teleportation skill. The isolation barrier was still up, so the mage didn’t seem to be worried about it. Instead, he focused on keeping Julius contained. However, Julius gave the mage a shit-eating grin as he finally used [Void Step] again.

Imagine the mage’s astonishment when Julius ripped through his isolation barrier and his runes. Julius appeared back down below, where the ice mage was left behind. The mage must have felt something was off and was turning around.

Julius created a blade of mana and infused it with [Void Strike]. He hadn’t used the skill much recently, since it was quite volatile and dangerous. But if there was ever a time, it was now.

Time slowed to a crawl, and the mage reacted to Julius’s sudden appearance. Several powerful skills were activated, and he could feel their Authority pressing firmly against his aura and skills. However, he pushed forward and used [Void Strike] as a wedge, tearing through their hastily constructed protections.

The mage’s eyes widened, and they could do nothing as Julius decapitated them in a flash.

Julius panted, holding a bloodied blade off to his side as he watched the mage’s body and separated head fall out of the sky, down toward the streets below.