Chapter 14: Survival

Right when he thought he was done for, Julius was grabbed from behind and tossed out of the way of the knife.

In the chaos, Julius had completely forgotten to wake Edwin up. Luckily, it seemed that breaking down his door was sufficient to wake Edwin from his slumber.

Edwin, after getting Julius out of the way, quickly attacked the intruder. Julius couldn’t follow their movements. However, a split second later, Edwin had a blade of shadow mana rammed through the chest of his opponent. The assassin never had a chance.

Seeing the commotion from Edwin’s room, Julius sensed the other assassins converging on it from their hiding places. The violet orb of mana didn’t make contact with his attacker. It was much faster than his previous constructs, but it was still too slow to hit a high-tiered opponent. Yet, it seemed that Lady Luck was on his side, and the orb, missing his intended target, was heading directly towards the doorway, where the assassins were now running.

The mass of violet mana hit the chest of the first assassin just as he was turning into the room and detonated. Unlike his earlier kick on the first intruder, this attack did much more damage.

The combination of condensed fire and kinetic mana created a lethal explosion that ripped through the defenses of the assassin. The orb that Julius created wasn’t a technique that focused on elegance or efficiency. It was a construct that had one purpose: to destroy anything in its path.

That said, Julius was still only Tier 1, so hurting someone who was probably Tier 3 or 4 was next to impossible. It was already insanely difficult to fight up to Tier 2 as a Tier 1, and the disparity between ranks only increased as you advanced.

That was why it was so surprising to see how effective his attack had been against a much superior opponent. The assassin was enveloped in the explosion and was blasted out of the doorway and through the walls of the building. Leaving a human-sized crater in its wake.

The hallway didn’t remain unscathed either. The surroundings of the explosion destroyed everything around it, and the wall connecting Edwin’s room to the hallway had turned to rubble.

Julius could only hear ringing in his ears from the shockwave of the blast. The chaos Julius had caused gave Edwin a few moments to get his bearings.

Edwin took a quick look around at the intruders still converging on them and immediately sent out a wave of shadow mana. It hit the group, and they all swayed as if they were drunk. It seemed like the purpose was only to disorient the assassins because Edwin instantly turned to the wall that connected his room and Lukas’s and blew a large hole through it.

Julius understood what Edwin was doing. He was trying to get to Lukas’s side, knowing that he was probably the intended target.

The other room had a similar scene playing out. Apparently, Lukas had heard the noise as well and woke up. However, around ten attackers were in the process of trying to kill the Patriarch, compared to the four who were in Edwin’s room.

It seemed their true target was the Patriarch of House Hyperius. Despite being heavily outnumbered, Lukas was holding his own.

His uncle had a thick, golden barrier of sun mana protecting him from the assassins’ bombardment. He was also simultaneously tossing out golden blasts whenever he could.

Unfortunately, it seemed like the assassin knew about his uncle’s abilities and had prepared accordingly. Three attackers with pitch-black shields stood in front of the others. These shields were able to absorb Lukas’s blasts with ease. It was almost like they were consuming the light out of the blasts.

It seemed like they had come well-prepared. It was well known that sun-affinity users were much more powerful during the daytime. It was also why they probably tried to assassinate Lukas at night. Therefore, they thought they had the best chance of success if they attacked him when he was weakest and defenseless in bed.

Still, the assassins weren’t making much headway into breaking Lukas’s defenses. To Julius’s surprise, Edwin grabbed him by the arm and whipped him over to Lukas’s feet. His uncle expanded his barrier a bit, so Julius was safe from any stray shots.

Edwin, on the other hand, promptly disappeared and reappeared directly behind the attackers. Within a blink, he took out one shield user with a blade to the back of their throat and disappeared again before half a dozen strikes landed on his location. This time, he reappeared several steps to the side and launched the same wave of mana he used in the other room at all of them. Disoriented, the attackers didn’t focus on Lukas, who had swept a narrow disk of condensed mana at the distracted intruders. It managed to cut through four of them like they were clay.

The other four from the other room had made their way over, and now there were nine opponents against Edwin, Lukas, and Julius. They also didn’t leave any more gaps for Lukas to exploit. Every attack from him was blocked by those black shields.

Julius just sat there behind the barrier, watching. He was aware he was more of a liability than anything else. Because he was there, Lukas was forced to continue protecting him within the barrier.

He constantly pulsed [Spatial Perception], making sure nothing snuck up on them. But the intense usage of it was putting a large toll on his brain. His legs were still a mess, even with him sending as much life mana as he could down into them. The only thing he thought might help was to try to replicate that violet mana orb again.

He didn’t know exactly how he did it, but it was the only thing he had done that caused actual damage. Taking a deep breath, he tried to remember that feeling. Ever since he successfully delivered that kinetic, empowered kick, a switch seemed to flick for Julius. Kinetic mana was now more responsive than before. It was as if once he had done it, his body wouldn’t let him forget it.

Julius vaguely seemed to remember getting a notification during the chaos. So, before he tried to recreate the orb, he wanted to quickly check to see if there was a skill available. Any increase in strength would be useful, right, and might be the difference between life and death.

[Spatial Perception] has reached threshold. [Spatial Perception lvl 16 -> Spatial Perception lvl 17]

[Spatial Perception] has reached threshold. [Spatial Perception lvl 17 -> Spatial Perception lvl 18]

[Focus] has reached threshold. [Focus lvl 8 -> Focus lvl 9]

He got two consecutive level-ups in [Spatial Perception] and one in [Focus]. It must have been the pressure he was under with the threat of death. It was an open secret that skill levels correlated with the amount of stress your soul endured. But he didn’t think it would have been this drastic.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

There were more notifications.

Would you like to learn the skill [Kinetic Release]?

Would you like to learn the skill [Thermal Compression] (Uncommon)?

He was offered two skills, and one was even uncommon. Learning an uncommon skill without evolving an existing general skill was difficult. Not many were able to achieve it. He had a feeling it was because of his years of compressing his own mana.

Julius had accepted both of them without a second thought. They might not be what he wanted in the long run, but if he survives the night, he could always remove them later.

Congratulations, skill [Kinetic Release] acquired.

Congratulations, skill [Thermal Compression] (Uncommon) acquired.

While Julius was fooling around with his new skills, Edwin and Lukas were fighting the remaining assassins. Feeling bad for being dead weight, he focused on his task.

[Thermal Compression] unsurprisingly was related to how Julius compressed his fire mana to its limit, and [Kinetic Release] was similar to what he had done with his kick to the assassin’s face. While they weren’t new variations of his abilities, these skills made a large difference already. He could feel them starting to activate on their own, with just the thought of it.

He began to load fire mana into another orb, while also trying to add kinetic mana on top of it. However, the way the kinetic mana was interacting with the fire mana did not feel the same as before. Earlier, the fire mana and kinetic mana seemed to swirl together inside, feeding off one another’s energy.