Path to Transcendence

Julius watched as Rolus unsuccessfully questioned the woman, still a little peeved that the fight hadn't gone the way he wanted it to.

On another note, they found out that Lyn wasn't exactly a member of the Conclave, she was simply a person who her family lent over to them. Which explained her general uncaring attitude about the members of the Conclave.

She wouldn't share who her family was or anything more important, but it would seem that she just didn't know a lot of things.

While Rolus kept trying to get more information out of her, Julius took the time to keep an eye out for other enemies.

The woman had surrendered too easily for his liking and no matter the reason she chose to share with them, he believed it was because there were other people involved.

Apparently, Rolus had already tried to notify House Easten of the attack but it would seem that the enemies had some kind of item or skill that kept the beacon from working, which was why the other teams that had gotten attacked, hadn't been able to call for help.

Items like these weren't exactly uncommon, but they were pretty expensive and hard to use. This was how House Easten knew whoever they were dealing with were not just simple thieves.

As he kept an eye out for more enemies, he glanced at the man who was still lying legless in the dirt and who was now in shackles of some kind that resembled the ones he had in his storage ring, but a little differently.

These ones seemed a little less intrusive but they also had some kind of imprisoning enchantment that his didn't have.

It was admittedly hard to feel bad for the guy. Julius didn't particularly like assassins, which wasn't shocking considering his history with them. Whereas he could already feel himself feeling more compassionate to the Lyn woman. Even though she was much closer to actually killing him.

What could he say, he respected people who could give him a good fight. That last attack could have potentially ended really badly if he hadn't made the decision to give up his arm and a good portion of his chest.

He still hadn't gotten his head chopped off, but that could have been the first time if he hadn't reacted in time.

It was just too bad, the fight ended before it could really start. He blamed Rolus for being there. If the man wasn't there, the odds were high that the woman would have continued to fight.

He sighed depressingly at the sadness of the situation. On the bright side, the rest of the fights were going pretty well. They were almost finished and most of the teams were still alive, taking fewer casualties than he expected going into this thing. Considering how much they had been outnumbered, he would say it was a pretty big achievement.

It helped that the four Tier 4s who came along with them weren't able to join their fellow Tier 3s. If they had, it likely would have gone in a completely different direction.

Once he saw that the other teams were handling the end of the fight, he finally took the time to process the information he got from that Crane guy.

First of all, it was nice to finally get some confirmation that House Greyson was a part of the Conclave's operations. That wasn't so much of a surprise though. He had expected something like that. A scummy House like House Greyson was bound to work with people like that.

He also wasn't surprised that this Crane person didn't know the details about the relationship between the two. It made sense that a simple Tier 4 wouldn't be privy to that information.

What was surprising, was the extensive list of names he managed to gather from the man about House Townsen's involvement.

It was quite a detailed list, one he was honestly surprised to get from the man. Furthermore, he was pretty certain that the information was all correct. He had the man in such a choke hold with his aura, that it would take the man himself believing in the wrong information to fool Julius.

While he didn't know every name on the list, he recognized a few names. Houses Hopley and Utman were one he had heard Richard and Rebecca discussing before. However, it would appear that only a few members of these Houses were truly traitors. Most of the people in those Houses were uninvolved.

Although Lord Townsen was almost guaranteed to be directly involved himself. Which was going to be an issue for Richard and Rebecca to handle. Julius had done his job and repaid the help he had gotten as well as getting something for himself.

He would have loved to get more information about House Greyson, but now he was pointed in the right direction at the very least and could start to work unraveling their operations.

If Crane was right, then House Greyson was a major player in the Conclave, though it was obvious considering their influence as a Ducal House. But if Julius could take them down a few pegs, he would be happy.

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As he stood by and watched for any more incoming enemies, he decided to try to use his communication orb again. He removed it from his storage ring and tried to contact Richard. However, the field that was blocking communication seemed to still be up and he was unable to.

Shaking his head, he put it back into his storage ring and replaced it with a smoking hot hand pie.

His teeth bit into the buttery and flaky crust, crumbs falling everywhere. He mumbled in joy as he enjoyed the hot meal.

Fighting really worked up a guy's appetite.

Just as he was going in for another bite, he was blindsided.@@novelbin@@

Somehow, before his perception could even detect them, a person appeared in front of him and jammed their fist into his chest.

Julius didn't even get a chance to react or move as the person's hand pierced all of his defenses like they were nothing. He could feel a distinctly powerful usage of mana cover this person's limb as it made a mess out of him. Then once the person's arm was deep into his chest, they detonated a mass of mana and blew Julius's entire torso apart.

He tried to gather his mana and protect himself, but he felt something clamp down on top of him without mercy and all of his mana fell apart.

It didn't help that the circuits within his body were torn to shreds either, which hampered his mana channeling.

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Then he was blasted in the face with one last strike and was sent hurdling over a hundred feet off into the distance.

After he stopped rolling, he didn't get up right away. He couldn't.

He was too stunned and too injured to do anything.

The good news was that he wasn't dead. Which he had every right to be at the moment. It was worth noting that he was missing more than half of his body. On the bright side, the pain was surprisingly not very present.

[Phoenix Renewal] was working in overdrive as it flooded his body with mana, trying its best to keep him alive some of his organs were splayed out in front of him, and the rest were scattered all around him.

The bad news was that [Phoenix Renewal] was having a difficult time healing him compared to normal. Usually, when he used the skill, he didn't have a problem with overcoming any external influences.

But it would seem that this wasn't the same case.

Whatever mana had pierced him and torn his chest apart was still there. And unlike normal mana, this mana had a sort of resilience to it that made his skill less effective than normal.

So instead of healing his wounds within moments, he found himself still struggling to stop himself from bleeding into the dirt and gurgling on his blood. He could feel his vitality start to slip as the damage was becoming too great.

What the hell just happened? He thought as he focused his skill on the most important parts of his body, trying to remain calm despite his dire situation.

Since the skill was severely hampered for the time being, he decided he needed to place his attention on the most crucial parts, things like his heart which was missing its lower half.

He struggled as the unknown mana fought against him. It almost felt like the mana had a will of its own and he cranked up [Sage of Savagery] and [Inexorable Aura of Ruin] to rise against it.

Thankfully, whoever's mana it was, must have believed that Julius was already dead because the potency of it was quickly fading. That was the only reason why he was able to crush it with his own will. If it wasn't for that, he didn't know if he could have overcome it.

Once a good chunk of the will within the mana was dissipated, he was finally able to use [Phoenix Renewal] to start really healing himself.

Now that his skill wasn't bogged down, his flesh quickly wove itself back together. Vitality rushed through his body as he pieced himself back together.

Once he was relatively back to normal, he couldn't help but notice that he had used a lot of mana. Much more than normal.

Perhaps, it was because of how much effort he exuded into removing the outside influence from his body, but he found himself with much less mana than he had just a minute ago.

He sat up, patted himself to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and took a look at where he was attacked.

There he spotted the person that had almost killed him.

It was a hulking man wearing nothing but a white t-shirt and shorts who was in the middle of tearing Rolus apart. The scarred man no longer had his sword, was beaten black and blue, and was missing both arms. But Julius had to give the man some credit, he was still fighting with everything he had.

A reverberating layer of green mana covered the man's arms as he punched Rolus in the shoulder, sending the armless man flying off into the distance.

But the hulking man didn't seem to think this was enough and Julius saw the man teleport and appear behind Rolus in mid-air. The man smashed a hammer fist down on poor Rolus, burying him into the dirt in a huge explosion of dirt.

Yep, definitely Tier 5, Julius declared confidently to himself.

The stupid and idiotic part of him wanted to dearly fight this scary man who had just put down Rolus like taking out the trash. Completely forgetting that just moments before the man had his fist in Julius's chest.

However, the more logical and reasonable side of him, that oddly sounded like Lily's voice called out to him, telling him not to throw himself at this man.

So he held himself back and no matter how much he wanted to, he decided to leave Rolus where he was and backed away slowly.

Tier 4s he could handle. Tier 5s?

Nope, he had seen just how easily Richard demolished him without using any skills.

He mentally saluted Rolus and turned in the other direction. There was nothing he could do for the man.

He gritted his teeth as he retreated. There should not have been any Tier 5s in the first place. Richard and the others assured him that he would only be facing Tier 4s at the most. He would definitely be having words with them after this.

He could have been killed just a few moments ago.

If he wasn't lucky the Tier 5 would have-

A lightning-fast arm passed over his head, just the shockwave itself kicked up dirt several dozen yards behind him.

He sent so much kinetic energy through his body that he almost imploded as he rocketed his body backward, creating several dense layers of mana around him.

He only barely managed to dodge because he had recognized the spatial warping from the Tier 5s spatial skill. Without that, his head would have come clean off and without his head, he didn't like his chances of living.

The Tier 5 paused as Julius avoided his strike and looked at him before taking a glance around him, inspecting something.

"You are still alive?" The man's deep baritone voice echoed throughout the plains.

The surviving members of the caravan who had finished up their fights had all stopped what they were doing and were watching with bated breaths. They had seen what had just happened to Rolus and were visibly scared of the man.

He didn't blame them either. It didn't matter if they fought, they would die all the same.

Fighting someone a tier above you was difficult beyond imagination, but fighting someone two whole tiers above you, was just suicidal.

And now with their sole Tier 4 out for the count, they realized they were fucked.

It would seem that some members already understood this and were making a run for it. However, the man in front of Julius didn't bother chasing them down. He let them run and maintained his attention on Julius.

A piece of Julius that wanted to stay alive another day, kind of hoped the man would have gone after these people.

It was just his bad luck that this man seemed more interested in him. He didn't know what it was about powerful people taking interest in him, but he was getting sick of it.

The Tier 5 still wasn't attacking and was examining Julius as if he were some valuable specimen.

"You don't have any signs of external life mana and I don't sense any activated items that would be able to heal such damage," the man continued talking to himself out loud. "What kind of skill do you have?" He directed his question at Julius.

Julius released a sigh and rolled his shoulders in preparation. [Sage of Savagery] was fully activated so his fear of the situation was relatively tame to his circumstance. He knew how much shit he was in and was fully prepared for what was about to come.

He always knew that someday he would come across someone stronger than him and who wanted to kill him. He had just hoped it would have come later down the road. He had been a bit gung ho ever since he had been reincarnated and had been extremely lucky to even still be alive.

But he would be damned if he just let this Tier 5 kill him without a fight.

So he ramped up all of his skills to the max. Everything in his arsenal was pushed to its limit. His body skill was humming with so much power that his ruinous aura lashed out uncontrollably. His constructs were packed with as much mana as he could, to the point that they were on the edge of destabilizing.

Even [Phoenix Renewal] was preemptively active, hoping that since it was active it would be able to heal him better than it had been able to just minutes ago.

The Tier 5 who was looking completely unfazed by how much mana Julius was displaying tilted his head to the side. "Are you sure you want to do this? If you answer some of my questions I promise I will let you live."

Julius scoffed at the man and finally responded. "And then what? You hand me over to the Conclave where they will do gods know what to me? Is that fate really any better?"

The man gave him a pitying look. "No, but it would mean you still get to live."

Julius let out a deep breath and smiled at the man.

"I think I will take my chances."

The Tier 5 nodded understandingly. "If that is your choice."