Path to Transcendence

Chapter 729: Hey There, Stranger

Whoever this person was, they were fast. But then again, Julius was faster.

He caught up with them, and while they were still in their smoke form, he wrapped his aura around them. Their Authority managed to bat it aside, but this time around, he didn’t try to immobilize them. Instead, he focused on causing as much mayhem as possible.

He slammed into the Authority with his own, then, while he had an opening, he threw his aura outward and suffocated the smoke. It worked pretty well, too; he could feel the violent contractions within the smoke, and they must have realized that they needed to cancel it. So the smoke coalesced together and formed their physical body again.

Julius didn’t give them any time to breathe. He aggressed and forced them on the back foot. They had already taken out another dagger to join their other. A powerful skill began to form around their daggers; it was like a hardened edge of wind mana rippling back and forth. He formed a pair of armored gauntlets over his forearms and deflected their swift strikes while pushing them backward.

He admitted that they were skilled. Each strike with their blade was aimed at his openings and vitals. Their speed made it hard, too, but he was also enjoying it. A properly trained opponent was hard to come by, and he took advantage of it. He primarily relied on [Pyrokinetic Embodiment of Ruin] to enhance his body. He wanted to test his raw skill against their own.

He swatted aside another nasty attack at his throat and feinted, going for the same single-leg takedown as before. They seemed a bit wary of this and drove their dagger down to intercept this, but halted all of his momentum with kinetic energy. The abrupt movement shook his organs, but it served its purpose. They were exposed, and with the siphoned kinetic energy, he let his right hand come crashing down from overhead. They managed to activate their smoke skill at the last second, but he was already prepared. His fist was layered with aura and disrupted the smoke form just enough that he was able to make contact with their shoulder.

He heard them grunt in both pain and astonishment, not expecting him to make contact. He ducked underneath the wild slice of the daggers and grabbed hold of their right arm, ensuring they couldn’t run away again. A blast of mana tried to slam into his face, but he weakened it with his aura and just tanked it.

He pulled them close, and he felt them activate a spatial skill at the last minute. He disrupted their attempt, though, and brought his head close, smashing the crown of his skull into their nose. He felt something shatter and whipped his fist into their sternum, breaking several ribs. Then he threw them with the arm he was still latched onto, and they went flying until they smashed into a tree.

He dashed after them, kinetic energy pouring into his legs, and when they tried to stand, he was already slamming his knee into their face. The tree and everything five feet behind it were obliterated. A shockwave echoed from the area, and the mysterious attacker fell limply to the ground.

He reached down and tore the person’s mask off. It was only then that Julius took a step back to observe the woman who had almost snatched Elaria right under his nose. The woman was quite slim but had impressively defined muscles. Her black hair was cropped short and had a pair of dangling earrings that radiated mana now that the woman was unconscious.

Julius didn’t know what they would do, but he’d experienced a suicide blast before, and so as a precaution, he threw aura at them and disrupted whatever they might be doing. Then he quickly removed them from the woman and inspected them carefully.

Now that they weren’t on her, they weren’t releasing any mana. He frowned and was hoping that they weren’t some kind of tracking signal. He also left a [Phoenix Mark] on her, just in case something happened. He also took the shackles that Elaria was wearing and locked them around the woman’s wrists.

While she was only a Tier 4, she had been quite good and didn’t need to risk her running away. There were already a lot of people he needed to keep his eyes on, and he didn’t want someone else to come running in and try to kidnap one of the girls while he was distracted again.

He dragged the woman behind him as he walked back to the camp with the girls.

Elaria was the first to greet him, and she immediately gave him a shallow bow. “Thank you… again.”

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He nodded her gratitude. “It’s fine. We should probably get moving; your people are waiting for us. Plus, I suspect they had a way to track this group, or the woman had been keeping watch over them. Either way, let’s get to a main road, hopefully they will be less willing to attack again with other people around,” he said with a sigh.

They seemed to agree and quickly got ready to leave.

Julius, on the other hand, looked over at the pile of unconscious bodies and rubbed his nose. He didn’t want to leave them out here; they weren’t exactly good people, but then again, how was he supposed to take them with him?

However, after a few moments, he got an idea and shrugged.

Might as well try it out, he thought internally.

He quickly gathered the unconscious bodies and started to stack them together. He created a small wagon out of mana and started loading it with them, as if they were sacks of potatoes. Then, when they were all loaded, he made sure to tie them down tightly with his mana, aura, and some spare rope he found in the leader’s storage ring. The rope was pretty strong, even though he wasn't able to rip it in half when he tried, so he hoped it would work well.

Only when he was satisfied with his work did he begin to pull them through the woods and back onto the main road.

***

Lily POV

They had reached the Obsidian Vault entrance, or rather what used to be the Obsidian Vault entrance, in decent time. But they hadn’t found anything, even after hours of deep searching. Marcus did a lot of investigating and testing with various items, but he didn’t sense much of anything.

He did say that there had been tampering with the doorway and that some of the sects or clans must have tried to open it up again, but that was about it. Otherwise, he’d found nothing. At least nothing that would explain where Julius had gone. It wasn’t like she had been expecting to find much, though.

It was more of a hopeful dream than anything else.

And so they trekked back through the woods, returned to the carriage, and prepared to head back towards Goldmere. She got the sense that Selene was just as disappointed as she was, whereas Arthur was still very wary of them, but her subtle mental probing indicated that it was more out of concern for his niece's safety than anything else.

However, he seemed to know he couldn’t do much, not when Selene wanted to help, and Marcus was there to stop him from doing anything drastic.

Unfortunately, there was simply not enough for them to figure out what had happened and get back on the road. It was getting somewhat late, but there were some lights illuminating the path. Furthermore, they weren’t the only people traveling on the road at night. There were a good number of people coming to Goldmere from other cities or towns.

However, they were riding down the road when she noticed a large group walking along the roadside. It wasn’t just a group, either, but they all had large cloaks that were too large for their bodies. He could see that several of them were shivering in the crisp evening air. A fair bit of fire mana was lingering in the air to act as a heater, but there was only so much it could do to help fight off the cold.

However, she saw what looked like a covered wagon made of mana being dragged by a cloaked person. That wasn’t what caught her attention, though; it was a seemingly large number of minds shoved in this pile. There were at least half a dozen unconscious people shoved underneath the covered wagon.

She didn’t see any chains or shackles on these people as they walked, but something was off. Marcus noticed too and had slowed the carriage down.

They had caught the attention of the person dragging the wagon; she could feel their eyes, hidden beneath their mask, staring at them with what seemed like a mixture of disbelief and bewilderment. She attempted to gently examine the person’s mind, and was forced to back immediately. She immediately sensed that this person had a multitude of defenses placed in his mind. He was clearly well taught in the art of mind defense.

Not only that, but she also got the impression that they were dangerous. His aura indicated nothing of this, but something told her that he was someone she needed to be careful around. Marcus seemed to get the same feeling. He had already prepared several of his skills and was backing her up in case something happened. He was unusually serious, and that in itself was alarming.

However, something about the person’s mind and the construction felt familiar. She knew it was potentially dangerous and the person might take it as a form of assault, but she did so anyway. She was very careful, and this time around, she only looked at the defenses, not testing or probing them.

After several seconds of careful inspection, her breath hitched in her throat when she felt the person lower some of the mind defenses of their own accord. It was as if they knew she was trying to examine them and were allowing her to.

She cautiously accepted the invitation and a second later, before Marcus could stop her, she flung open the door to the carriage and ran out toward the group. The masked person flinched back, but she didn’t care, and before he could stop her, she tackled him in a hug.

Taking them down to the ground. She sat up and stared at him with a bright smile, with tears pooling in her eyes.

“Hey there, stranger,” she said with a joyful laugh.