Chapter 174: House Crest

The bald guy with the beard got up to his feet and pulled a large stave from his storage device. He also summoned a chestplate and armor from his storage directly onto his body.

Oh, it seems he is finally getting serious, Julius told himself with a smirk.

Julius felt an incredible amount of mana getting pumped into the stave via one of the guy’s skills. Yellow flames engulfed the stave in a flickering halo. It looked pretty, but honestly, he believed that there was too much mana getting wasted in the process.

He didn’t want to be a critic, but considering one of his main affinities was fire, he couldn’t help himself.

His friend with the shortsword just pulled out another one, dual-wielding the two shorter blades.

“Who are you?” The shortsword guy asked demandingly.

“I think the better question is who are you and why are you following me?” Julius replied calmly.

“You shouldn’t be sticking your nose into other people’s business,” the bald guy said angrily.

“Is that what this is about? I beat up some of your guys so you decided to tail me and…” Julius gave a dramatic look around at where they were. “… Kidnap or kill me?” He didn’t know if this was the actual reason, but he wanted to see if they would confirm some of his own suspicions.

“You almost killed one of them,” the bald guy growled out.

Suspicion confirmed. Wait, what did he say?

“Huh? No, I didn’t. I was pretty gentle with them all things considered,” Julius replied to the guy. A little offended by the accusation.

“I don’t give a shit what you said you did. The fact of the matter is that one of them had their organs ruptured and you can’t just get away with that.”

“Wait. You said he had his organs ruptured? Which one was it?” Julius asked genuinely interested. He was pretty confident that he held back an appropriate level, but he did hit that one guy with a couple of extra shots to the chest.

“I ain’t telling you shit!” The bald guy yelled.

“You say shit a lot,” Julius said offhandedly.

“What?” The guy stopped being angry and looked more confused than anything.

“Nothing. Hey, quick question, but was this guy who almost died a burly-looking guy who had three friends?”

“So you did do it!” The bald guy was once again furious.

Julius placed his hands up in the air placatingly. “I might have done it. But to be fair, that is the only guy I did that to and he kind of deserved it,” he argued.

“I don’t care!”

“Well, you should.”

Julius saw the veins on the guy’s shiny crown pulse angrily. That was the only warning he got. The bald seemed like he was no longer interested in talking with Julius and decided that violence was his answer. His feet exploded with fire mana and blasted him toward Julius.

Julius used [Flash Step] and avoided it easily. But he didn’t really pay too much attention to the baldy. He was more focused on the other guy. He had gone invisible the moment baldy attacked and was creeping on Julius’s back.

However, Julius let him. The guy shouldn’t know about his perception skill so he was just wrapping himself up for Julius in a neat little bow.

Baldy sent another barrage of flames at Julius, blinding his vision and covering him in fire. It didn’t do any damage, but Julius didn’t think that was what it was for. It was most likely for his friend who was dashing at Julius through the flames.

The fluidity and timing of the attack spoke volumes. These two were undoubtedly familiar with each other and had definitely done this same attack before.

Hell, it was a good plan. Julius himself used it on the trolls. It was just too bad that he knew exactly where the shortsword guy was attacking from.

Before the guy made contact with him, Julius siphoned the kinetic energy from the guy’s leap. He used some sort of wind skill to boost himself, but Julius quite literally took the wind from his sails.

He thought that his previous usage of siphoning kinetic energy was a fluke because the guys were too weak, but now he just understood that it was his will that made such a dramatic leap in strength.

These men weren’t scrubs; they were actually quite good fighters with solid willpowers of their own. His little test of wills to take away his kinetic energy proved it. Their wills outclassed the other thugs by a wide margin. It just sucked for them that Julius’s was still on a different level.

He reached for Inexorable Will and clapped down on the man’s aura, completely overriding whatever resistance the man put up. The guy froze mid-air with a baffled expression.

The best part of it was the guy left himself right in front of Julius, completely defenseless. His bald friend was too late to help, Julius absolutely rocked the shortsword guy with an arm full of kinetic energy, fire mana, and sharpened mana.

The barrier and the defensive skill that surrounded him were completely shattered and overpowered by Julius’s strike. It tore a gaping hole into the guy’s chest and the guy fell to his face motionless.

Julius could sense that he was still alive, his chest was still moving, but if he didn’t get attention soon he wouldn’t be.

The baldy wasn’t just twiddling his thumbs while Julius was dealing with his friend either. He launched a concentrated bolt of fire mana at Julius’s back. However, since Julius was busy punching the other one, he decided to take the attack on his back to give him enough time to break through Shortsword’s defenses, hoping his armor dealt with the damage.

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It held up pretty well. There was barely a dent in the armor, his Concept of Sharpness took care of most of it before it impacted. Julius turned to face the fire baldy with his full attention.

He could still see the blood pouring down his hand from Julius’s spikes. But Julius didn’t think this guy was even aware of his injury. He was looking at Julius with bloodthirsty eyes, enraged at what Julius did to his friend.

Unlike his friend, he didn’t attempt to engage Julius. He kept on sending blasts of fire mana at Julius while keeping his distance. Whenever Julius got too close he would set off a widespread explosion that knocked Julius away, allowing him to get distance again.

Julius tried going after a couple of times, but after the third attempt, he wasn’t going to waste any more time chasing him. He created a bunch of spikes of mana over his shoulder. Pale violet sharpened spikes of mana pointed threateningly at the baldy in the distance.