Chapter 80

The four of them were on their way to the library, to meet up with Kyle and Derek. Professor Keller had shown up, but it was toward the end of class when it was almost already over. 

Aubrey had kept prodding Julius about what he wanted to show them. He must have told her no a dozen times, but she was persistent. When they walked into the library, he waved at the librarian who smiled at him over the book she was reading. 

He left some books in the return area, before following them upstairs to where Kyle and Derek were already sitting, waiting for them.

“Okay, we are all here now, so what is it?” Aubrey demanded.

Kyle and Derek both had confused expressions on their faces. 

“What is what exactly?” Derek asked Edgar quietly.

Edgar leaned over to Derek, “Julius said he had something to show us but Aubrey is upset because he said that he should wait until all of us are together.”

Derek laughed upon hearing that, Julius saw that even Kyle had a tiny smile on his face. Derek turned to Julius. “Sorry about her, she has always been the impatient one.”

“No, I am not!” Aubrey vehemently denied. 

Lily had already put up her barrier so Julius didn’t worry about the yelling bothering the other students. 

“Yes you are,” Edgar nudged Aubrey gently and smiled at her. Aubrey felt miffed and crossed her arms to let her displeasure be known. 

“I think it’s very considerate and sweet,” Lily commented.

“Well, he should never have brought it up if he wasn’t going to share it right away. It is just a tease at this point, like dangling a shiny ruby in my face but telling me I can’t touch it,” Aubrey complained.

Julius smiled at their antics and focused on his core. He had tried to get Drasil out earlier today, but nothing had worked. It wasn’t until he had lured the spirit out with a handful of life mana that Drasil came out.

So Julius created a small orb of life mana as he gently awoke the sleeping spirit lying in his core. He felt the little guy slowly blink his eyes open and look around confused. Then he must have felt the life mana Julius was holding in his hands and quickly that was all he was focused on. 

Julius could practically sense the little guy salivating and Drasil swiftly left the comforts of his core and appeared on his palm that was holding the mana.

Lily and Aubrey gasped in shock and cooed at the appearance of the cute little spirit. Their eyes sparkled with joy as they watched Drasil press his entire tiny body against the orb of life mana with a face of contentment. 

Aubrey was the first to speak. “Is that the spirit seed we saw that one morning?” She asked excitedly. 

“Yep.”

“What spirit seed?” Lily asked.

Julius slapped his forehead, he forgot that half of them didn’t know he had a spirit seed. He had only told Edgar and Aubrey, the others hadn’t been there at breakfast and Lily had gotten there after he told them about it.

Aubrey turned to Lily, “You remember that plant he had at breakfast?”

Lily thought for a moment, and then had a look of realization, remembering that morning. “That was a spirit seed?” She asked.

“What are you guys talking about?” Derek was feeling completely left out.

Julius felt that he should explain to the rest of them. “Sorry, I forgot that I didn’t tell some of you guys yet. But I bought this life spirit seed at a store in Heston not that long ago and was planning to get a life spirit to contract as my familiar. He just manifested last night so I wanted to show you guys. I don’t know its gender but I have been calling him Drasil.”

Julius noticed that Kyle was much more interested than he expected him to be. He had gotten pretty close to Drasil now and was observing the life spirit munching away at the orb of life mana with no care for his surroundings. Julius had to admit that Drasil was a really cute spirit, he could see why rich nobles got them as pets.

Julius had been thinking about his situation a bit more. He had concluded that he didn’t believe he needed to hide his life affinity, at least not to the extent that he had been doing. With Drasil now a factor to think about, he thought it might be easier to explain it by saying he had a life affinity, but it wasn’t that good. As for why he didn’t state it on his entrance exam, he didn’t think that would be such a big issue, considering he wasn’t focusing on it in school. 

He was brought out of his thoughts by Aubrey who was trying to tickle the little spirit whose body was hugging the orb of life mana. The little spirit didn’t pay her that much attention, much to Aubrey’s disappointment. 

He is still just as much a glutton as he was when he was just a spirit seed. Julius chuckled to himself. 

Drasil was completely focused on eating as much life mana as he could and Julius kept feeding the orb more mana. Aubrey and Lily were talking about how cute Drasil was. They were sharing stories about when they were younger and wanted a spirit of their own. Kyle, on the other hand, had taken out a notebook and was observing Drasil with a delighted look, while writing occasional notes down.

Julius just sat back and watched the three of them enjoy Drasil’s presence. He smiled to himself. He was very fortunate to have found these people. If he didn’t have them around he truly thought he might have been punching a training dummy all day and night, or spent every waking moment training to get stronger. This was much healthier for him, he couldn’t forget why he was getting stronger, it was to protect moments like these.

Edwin POV

Edwin was tired. He had been running for the past week straight, and while he didn’t think anyone was on his heels, he didn’t want to take any chances. He had kept up his [Umbral’s Shade] the entire, even during his sleep. Only anger and hatred had kept him going.

After Julius was swept up in the chaotic spatial waves. Lukas had lost his shit, for good reason. Practically nobody survived spatial rips, even Tier 5s couldn’t handle the exposure. Edwin felt a wetness drip from his face down and splatter against the cold floor. Julius was a good kid, and Edwin had quickly come to care for the boy, even as annoying as he could be sometimes.

Lukas went ballistic, he bombarded Samuel with terrifying blasts of sun mana, laying waste to the entire cavern, almost collapsing the entire thing on top of them. To Samuel’s credit though, he didn’t outright die from the assault, he was able to hold him off only losing an arm and leg before the others came and saved him.

Death was too good for that traitorous bastard. Edwin clenched his teeth, almost cracking them from the stress, as he recalled the memories of the night.

Edwin for all his strength hadn’t been able to do anything. Everything he threw at the other Tier 5s was completely negated. Not a single piece of mana or aura was able to make it through their domains. Edwin’s Authority had felt useless. Even his his shadow magic had been severely limited, they all were able to see straight through it. They had swatted him to the side like a fly and sent him smashing through the wall. It was infuriating and humiliating, he was a Tier 4 but was unable to even help his best friend.

It was Lukas against the half-a-dozen attackers. Lukas was good, better than good, he was a monstrous Tier 5, but even he could not take on half a dozen elite Tier 5s who had carefully prepared for him. Samuel and the two other elders were a problem enough as is, they focused on disrupting Lukas’s control of his techniques and skills, while the other three were focused on attacking the man. 

Edwin spotted a psychic who was slinging telekinetic spears of mana while simultaneously attacking Lukas’s mind. Then there was a shadow mage who constantly tried to curse Lukas and attack him from angles he couldn’t defend against. 

Slowly but surely, they beat Lukas down and made it a battle of endurance. They were using as little mana as they could while trying to get Lukas to use as much as his. They understood that they couldn’t kill Lukas quickly.

Edwin prayed for Lukas to prevail, though in his heart he knew that his defeat was inevitable. In the end, when Lukas was about to run out of mana, he sent Edwin a message, commanding him to run. Edwin wanted to argue but knew better than to act out of emotion, so even though it broke his heart, he followed Lukas’s orders and escaped.

One of the Tier 5s tried to prevent him, but Lukas had already begun burning his soul. Edwin almost cried upon seeing that. Soul burning was a last-ditch effort that was only used when you had accepted defeat. You could become much stronger for the moment, at the cost of his life. Lukas had already accepted his demise but still used his last breath to save Edwin. 

Lukas wrapped all the Tier 5s within his domain with an unbelievable amount of oppressive power, restricting their movements and abilities. This split second allowed Edwin to use his teleportation skill to escape. However, Edwin wouldn’t forget Lukas’s face of determination and hatred before he vanished. 

Once he teleported outside the estate’s border, he felt a massive surge of mana where Lukas had been fighting. Edwin spun around to look back and all he saw when he turned around was, a miniature sun over a mile wide exploding into existence. Golden yellow flames reached for the sky. There wasn’t any sound but a burst of light and then nothing. Lukas’s last attack had annihilated the entire estate, leaving nothing but a smoldering crater, killing himself and others.

He could still see Julius’s and Lukas’s faces haunting his dreams every night for the last week, and it fueled his hatred like nothing else. 

A week later he had almost reached Terian. He was probably only a few more days away if his estimation was correct. Right now, he was walking through a village he had come across along the way.

It wasn’t a nice village. Like most villages to the northeast and near Terian, it was quite a mess. It probably only housed a few hundred people, buildings were in poor condition, and every person Edwin saw looked half-starved. 

It was depressing in a way. In most parts of the empire, people prospered and lived well. However, places like these unfortunately still exist. Places where nobles had completely given up on maintaining any type of order. Small monster floods were often problems in these parts, wiping many small towns off the map, along with their residents.

It was unfortunate because the lords of the Baelor Region didn’t care enough about their surrounding territory as long as their pockets were full. Marquis Roy and the lords underneath him were quite infamous for their criminal behavior. They would come in after towns were already slaughtered, deal with the remaining monsters, and harvest their cores and materials. 

They did just enough so that the Empire couldn’t do anything to them, but everyone knew what they were doing. They were purposefully allowing rifts to break open and then amass wealth from the aftermath. Edwin had even heard reports that House Roy and other lords were artificially causing rift overflows, and would use their citizens in their territory as bait before taking care of it.

The city of Terian was a gorgeous place that rivaled Celestia in its beauty, but the elegant appearance was just a facade for what lay beneath the surface. Terian had become a place where crime was commonplace and was a city that thrived on violence and carnal desires. It was where Gregor had spent many of his years, so that should be enough to explain how awful the place was. 

Therefore, seeing the state of such a place, angered Edwin even more than he was at the moment. However, as much as he would like to go searching for the lord who ruled over this village and butcher him and his entire family, he couldn’t. He had other priorities. 

He had contacts in Terian that could help Edwin take revenge. He would make sure that Duke Greyson, Samuel, the other elders, and Clan Genshen would pay for what they did, no matter the cost. If they wanted to take everything from him, he would take everything from them.