Path to Transcendence

Chapter 754: Clean Up

Julius felt a little bad, but Daren didn’t seem too upset. In fact, he had already asked Julius for a rematch several times within the past hour. Because of his insistence, Julius was forced to agree just to have the guy leave him in peace.

Thankfully, they hadn’t stayed for long. They still needed to get back to Goldmere, and the fact that they had two Tier 5s tied up and stuffed inside a box meant they didn’t have the time to hang out. Plus, Lily was waiting for them. House Violet had sent over a few people to watch over her, but Marcus didn’t feel good about leaving her alone for very long. He’d already reluctantly left her behind.

The trip back to Goldmere was much quieter, and they only came across a few monsters. Fortunately, no ambushes or Tier 5s were waiting for them on the road. However, when they arrived, both Kaito and Marcus went straight to work. Marcus would handle the questioning of Haruto and that swordsman. Whereas Kaito was going to handle the situation within the clan.

Despite Haruto being taken care of, there were more things for him to clean up. Hayden and a couple of other elders were still out there. Not to mention how many other people supported Haruto. Thankfully, Lily had already contacted her family and brought in some mind mages who would help Kaito sort through who was loyal and who wasn’t.

Julius did end up getting a job he was looking forward to, though. Despite the most dangerous of Haruto’s main supporters having been taken care of, there were a few, such as Hayden, who still needed to be brought in.

Kaito had already kept a close eye on Hayden’s movements and sent Julius after him. Of course, this was all on his own request. Julius hadn’t liked Hayden since the day he first met him and wanted to punch the man in the face a few times before this was over.

They had entered the clan quietly, so nobody should know they were back yet. So while Kaito went to deal with the other elders, Julius would be taking care of Hayden.

Fortunately, Hayden was easy to find. He was currently alone in his home inside Clan Yoshu’s estate. His home wasn’t as nice as Kaito’s, but it was still quite glamorous. A little too much gold and flair for Julius’s own taste, but it fit Hayden’s personality quite well.

Julius walked straight up the front yard. Kaito had already given him access to many of the clan’s enchantments and protection arrays. This meant he was able to pass through without any issue. However, there were a few enchantments that were placed that he wasn’t able to access so easily.

Fortunately for him, this didn’t really matter. He used [Void Step] to teleport straight past them and entered Hayden’s home without setting off any alarms. He quickly located the man as well; he was asleep in his bed, and bottles of alcohol and clothes were strewn all over the room.

Julius sighed. A part of him had been hoping for a bit more of a challenge, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t like Hayden was a powerful Tier 5 in the first place, but he could have at least put up a fight.

Julius stared at Hayden's snoring form and came up with a decent idea. It would satisfy his needs while still being somewhat cautious. He walked over to Hayden; the man still didn’t so much as twitch, and removed the man’s storage ring from his hand.

It was only then that Hayden woke up. However, Julius used liberal amounts of aura and kinetic energy to hold him down. He wasn’t gentle either; he viciously tore apart every bit of mana Hayden managed to gather. Unlike Daren, Julius didn’t feel the least bit bad about going too hard.

He also took the time to remove another ring and a necklace placed around Hayden's neck. He didn’t know what either item did, but in his experience, it was better safe than sorry. He tucked the items away and finally stared at the man splayed out on the bedsheet.

“Hey there,” he greeted Hayden, leaning in close.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” Hayden cursed at him, desperately trying to struggle out of Julius’s control. The man’s willpower was quite sad and weak. He wasn’t able to break free no matter how desperately he struggled. It was only when he decided to activate his domain that he had some success. Despite Julius’s strong willpower and control over kinetic energy, there were things that a domain could do that he couldn’t quite replicate.

That being said, it wasn’t like he had to worry about Hayden’s domain that much. He had already activated his anti-domain technique, and despite Hayden’s best efforts to kill him through the domain, it proved ineffective. Julius just stared flatly at him, letting the man struggle for a little while longer.

“What are you doing?” Hayden asked in a panic, flinging a giant mass of mana at Julius. He was finally on his two feet, and that was enough for Julius.

Julius teleported away from the attack and punched the man in his smug face. The shout of pain filled Julius with satisfaction, and then he brought his knee up and slammed it into Hayden’s stomach.

He slapped aside the weak swing from Hayden with disdain and headbutted him square in the nose. He stepped beneath the wild swing and blast of wind magic. He cranked a fully empowered fist straight into Hayden’s throat.

He felt something collapse within the man’s throat. Hayden coughed out blood as he fell to the ground, clawing at his neck.

Julius knelt down and let his aura flow into the man’s body. It was astonishing to see how easily Hayden lost his concentration. For a Tier 5, it was a bit embarrassing to say the least.

“So what does the Conclave want?” he asked casually.

Hayden didn’t even hear him. He was so busy panicking and flailing around that he wasn’t even able to focus on Julius’s words. It forced Julius to hold the man down, clamping down on him with his kinetic energy.

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He even slapped the man across the face. “What does the Conclave want?” he repeated. As much as he wanted to humiliate and beat up Hayden, he needed to figure out what the Conclave wanted. They were the real threat, and understanding what they wanted would give Julius an idea of what to do next.

On another note, it was quite ironic to see a man who had been acting so arrogantly flail around like a scared child.

“I can’t tell you!” Hayden rasped out. His throat was likely damaged. Julius was tempted to heal the man’s throat just so he could hear him better, but ultimately decided against it.

Instead, Julius pressed his knee against the man’s chest and stared deeply into his eyes. He didn’t press his aura so hard that Hayden couldn’t breathe, but rather he used it a lot more delicately. He wasn’t an expert in the mind arts like Lily, but he learned a few things over the past few years.

For one, his aura control was unnaturally precise. It was a symptom of his ruinous aura and the constant need to keep it under control. However, he also had a very powerful soul, which made his aura even more dangerous. This, of course, improved his control as well. This meant he was able to do things with his aura that most people weren’t capable of.

The only thing was that he didn’t have many opportunities to test out his ideas. Fortunately, he had someone who could help him right now. He didn't miss the irony that both Haruto and Hayden were helping him test out new things.

He stifled a chuckle and began to weave his aura into a fine spear, controlling the more destructive tendencies. Instead, he relied on its weight and depth to pressure Hayden. Whatever attempts at resistance Hayden threw up were quickly dismantled by Julius.

It wasn’t long before he held Hayden’s aura with an iron fist. It was different from his usual aura suppression; this one felt much more intimate and intrusive. As if he held Hayden’s spirit in his hand. He could also tell that this caused the man an incredible amount of pain.

Not that Julius really cared about that part. As far as he was concerned, Hayden deserved it.

“What does the Conclave want?” Julius asked once again. Now that he had Hayden’s soul within his grasp, he could feel some weird fluctuations the moment he asked such a question. Furthermore, there were very faint chains of black wrapping around Hayden’s neck. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that this was some kind of vow of silence.

However, Julius wanted to try out an idea he’d been thinking about for a while. Not seeing the harm in testing it, he started to pick through Hayden’s soul, none too gently either. In fact, he made several mistakes along the way, but the good part about testing this technique on someone like Hayden was that Julius didn’t feel the least bit bad about making a few mistakes. He continued experimenting with a clear conscience.

That wasn’t to say that he wasn’t being somewhat careful. He didn’t want to accidentally kill Hayden before he got some answers.

As he worked, he drowned out Hayden’s pained screams and finally found what he believed to be the parts of Hayden’s soul connected to this contractual vow. Julius thought this because out of all of the things connected to the man’s soul, these little threads seemed like the only things out of place.

If he had to compare it to anything, it was like running his hands across a piece of cloth and feeling a few loose threads across the surface. He was very careful with this too. He had a feeling that these threads were very delicate and would kill Hayden the moment they were triggered.

That being said, Julius was still planning to mess with them. But he wanted to do some testing beforehand.

He kept his senses wrapped around Hayden’s soul and started to say some words out loud.

“Conclave.” Just this one word elicited a small reaction from the threads. They vibrated slightly and rose in the air like hair on one’s arms.

“Celestine,” he tested another word.

This time, he got a similar reaction, though, surprisingly, it was even more dramatic. All of the threads seemed to rise up simultaneously. It was more than likely that Celestine created this contract of silence.

He kept testing various words and the reactions the threads gave him. Of course, this wasn’t pleasant to Hayden, and the man quickly turned into a blubbering mess. He was begging Julius to let him go. However, his voice was becoming a little annoying, and so Julius shoved a handful of mana into the man’s mouth. He didn’t need to hear what the man said yet; he still wanted to gauge how the man reacted to certain words and if it was possible to remove these threads from Hayden’s soul.

He was pretty confident that it was possible, at least in theory. But there were a few issues he had already predicted might cause him problems. For one, he would need to remove the threads entirely. If he didn’t rip them out root and stem, he would probably activate whatever failsafe Celestine created.

The other big issue was ensuring he could rip them out at the same time. Leaving one thread would be just as bad as leaving a root of one. Fortunately for him, he was feeling pretty confident about this little part. His practice for his skill advancement was perfect for this. His aura control was so precise that the experience should translate over easily enough.

He sensed some disturbances outside the home, though, and understood that he was on a time crunch. If he was going to do anything, it had to be now.

So despite some reservations, he got started on it. He made sure to elicit responses from the threads as best as he could. He realized that doing this made grabbing hold of them a lot easier. With [Calm Before Ruin] supporting his mind and soul, he wrapped his aura tightly around these little threads. He made sure to run his aura as deeply as he could, making sure he got every bit out.

This was an uncomfortable experience for Hayden, and he began flailing again. Julius was forced to restrain him with kinetic energy and create restraints with [Primordial Armaments], anchoring the man to the ground.

“Hold still, I might kill you if you keep on squirming,” he warned Hayden.

Shockingly, this didn’t work. Instead, it only made Hayden freak out more. Julius let out a disappointed sigh, and while he pinned the man down, he began to extract the threads out of his soul.

The extraction was actually pretty simple. They came out a lot easier than he anticipated, and the roots came out cleanly as well. However, he didn’t anticipate the damage to the soul when these threads were extracted. The holes left behind started to leak soul energy, and quite a lot of it.

The man was practically hemorrhaging within the soul. Fortunately, Julius reacted quite swiftly and let his healing skill flow into the man’s body. [Phoenix Incarnate] was really quite good at healing the soul.

After all, Julius had gotten more soul injuries than most people did in several lifetimes. It was a little harder to do on a person who wasn’t himself, but he brute-forced it. The results weren’t very pretty, but Hayden was alive. And that was enough for Julius.

He reached down and patted the man on the face a few times, shocking him awake with a few liberal pulses of ruinous aura. It worked pretty well too. Hayden jumped up, or tried to at least. Julius still had him chained to the ground.

Julius smiled widely and patted the man gently on his sweat-covered head. “Hey there, sleepyhead. So… I removed that pesky little contract you made with Celestine. It was a mean piece of work, but it's gone now. So knowing that, what do you say? Are you willing to talk now?”

Hayden let out a muffled groan.

“Oh! Sorry about that,” Julius said and removed the gag from the man’s mouth.

Turns out that Celestine was right in forcing a vow of silence on Hayden because now that it wasn’t there, the man sang like a bird and told Julius everything.