Chapter 421: Investigating

The sun quickly set on his back. The only visible light came from the night sky, and it was quite a magnificent sight to behold.

The moon was massive and had this ephemeral blue that lit up the entire sky. What was even more breathtaking was the iridescent rainbow that streaked across the sky. It was subtle, but the sight was positively magical.

For the time being, he simply enjoyed the sight as he made his way toward his destination.

He hadn’t been expecting much; his idea had been to scout the area and see if there was any movement or people around. He hadn’t actually expected to find anything. However, two hours in, he got pinged by his perception skill. Just below him, in the snow-covered trees, he felt a group of people camping.

He didn’t see any flames or light, which was odd. However, he was pretty sure that they were there. His skill was telling him this with confidence. He had already covered himself in a black cloak so that he was hard to see in the dark. His wings were also changed so that they didn’t glimmer in the night sky too much.

Still, he was careful and lowered himself, using the trees to cover his approach as he investigated more closely.

His aura was hidden entirely. He made sure of that. Once he got closer, he got a better look at what the deal was. There were over a couple of dozen people all sprawled out across the camp. Julius swiftly realized why he hadn’t been able to see any light or signs of people from above.

These people had some kind of item or person using a skill to hide them. It was likely some kind of illusion-based enchantment or skill if he had to take a guess. There were other functions as well, but he wasn’t an expert and was only relying on his mana senses to examine the barrier. He didn’t have a dedicated analysis skill to help him.

Of course, there were things he could surmise. For one, the barrier definitely had an isolation element to it. He wasn't able to hear any of the voices down below, even though he saw many of them talking loudly and getting drunk.

Another was that the barrier most likely had some form of protection against outside threats. That would only make sense considering the current environment.

He didn’t do anything right away. Instead, he took the time to inspect what these people did. He had no idea who they were, but it was curious to see such a large group out in the middle of the wilderness in these conditions.

They didn’t seem to be adventurers or a team of any kind. Their gear and outfits seemed too disorganized to be that. No, he was starting to have a feeling that he had found the exact people he had been looking for.

Furthermore, the group of bandits was known as the Frost Bear Clan, and he saw small emblems displaying a frosty-looking bear. If that wasn’t a sign, then he didn’t know what was.

As he was coming to this realization, his senses picked up something else. He almost hadn’t detected it because of how well it was hidden, but at the center of the camp was a larger tent than the others. However, it was what's inside this tent that surprised him.

It wasn’t their leader or anything like that. Nope. What he discerned was a smaller barrier made of mana. It was completely opaque, and if not for his skill, he would not have been able to see through it. However, upon a closer look, he gritted his teeth and clenched his palms in anger.

There were people in there. Men, women, and children all packed inside this barrier tighter than sardines. Not only that, they were severely injured as well. Some of them had large gouges of flesh dangling from their bodies.

It was the children who really did it for him. Some were young, extraordinarily so. One girl didn’t seem to be older than ten years, yet she had a massive gash across her entire back, from shoulder blade to hip.

He took one look at these bandits laughing around and celebrating like some party, then back at these prisoners. His decision had already been made before he could fully comprehend the situation. Without a moment’s hesitation, he was already dropping from the sky, folding his wings into thick bands on his wrist.

Just before his body hit the barrier, he used to teleport through. Whatever defensive protections the barrier used, it wasn’t enough to keep him out. Nobody even noticed it when he appeared in the middle of camp. They were too busy having their fun and didn’t think anything was off when a robed figure was walking around. To their defense, it wasn’t like he was the only one covering their faces. Several others also wore black cloaks.

He headed straight for the tent in the middle, which held the prisoners. However, as he walked by, he overheard some of the people's conversations.

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“Come on, don’t tell me that you aren’t tempted either, man.” One of the burly men with a drink in his hand asked his buddy with a greedy glint in his eyes, getting close to his face.

The friend pushed him away. “I am, but you know what would happen if the boss finds out. We’ll be lucky if he only cuts off our heads,” the buddy said in a whisper. He was quite different from the burly man. He was just as tall, but much thinner. He was also much more handsome, with long blonde hair that trailed down his back.

“He won’t ever know as long as nobody snitches,” the burly man stated with a scoff.

Blondie peered over at his friend with a hesitating look. “And if one of the prisoners decides to blab their mouth?”

The burly man shrugged. “I don’t know. We can always just cut their tongues out after we have our fun. They can’t rat on us if they can’t speak, right?”

The blonde didn’t respond, but that seemed to be enough for the burly man because he nodded with happiness, before getting up and strolling to the center of the camp.

Julius froze where he stood and slowly looked directly at the men walking right towards the prisoner's tent. They spotted him right away. At first, they chuckled and waved at him, but their smiles turned into frowns.

“Wait. Who are you? I don’t think I have seen you before,” the blonde-haired man stated with a wary look on his face. Julius didn’t respond and slowly lifted his head to stare directly at the two men.

He considered lying and using an excuse to avoid trouble. But he decided against it. This wasn’t exactly how his night was supposed to go, but he knew that he wouldn't be leaving here without those kidnapped prisoners. He also knew that these people wouldn’t just let him walk out of here with them.

That really only left one option.

The men weren’t completely stupid. They understood that something was wrong and began to channel some mana through their bodies. Julius allowed them since he was still hiding his aura and didn’t want to reveal it just to disrupt their skill.

However, before the men could pull out the swords at their sides, he had already blanketed them with kinetic energy. It took barely any effort, and he crushed their willpower to dust, letting their resistance fade away.

They tried to shout to get the attention of their group around them, but Julius didn’t let them have the chance. He snapped their jaws shut with kinetic energy so hard that he heard their jaws crack from the force.

He then walked up to them with calm and solemn eyes. He had already started to form a small spatial ripple in his off hand. His practice over these past couple of weeks had really paid off, and despite not acquiring the skill he wanted, his ability to control this energy had vastly improved.

He formed a spatial distortion and narrowed it down into a tiny ball before slowly hovering it toward the two men. It was somewhat tricky, but he managed to keep it stable as the distortion moved.

He had learned that these distortions didn’t like being moved. It was almost as if they were anchored to the space he created for them, and moving them drastically increased the likelihood of collapse. It was due to his efforts that he was now able to move them around. The trick was to keep it in a constant state of flux.

He used to establish the spatial distortion in place, but now he just held it together with his own willpower. More challenging? Yes.

But more versatile? Absolutely.

These two men barely seemed to understand what was happening. They likely couldn’t see the distortion like Julius did. They were practically invisible and required a spatial sense skill or great mana senses to detect what Julius was doing.

They obviously had neither because they didn’t look the least bit panicked when the small orb of chaotic space got within several inches of their noses. For a moment, he hesitated. However, he swiftly recalled the disgusting emotions he felt roll off their auras as they headed towards the prisoners, and that hesitation vanished. These weren’t good people, not at all.

He controlled the spatial distortion and had it pass right through their heads. There was some initial resistance, but once it broke through, the droplet of spatial magic pierced their skulls like a sharp knife through butter.

They were dead before they could begin to question what was going on.

Julius didn’t even bother to look back at their dead bodies and continued on his way toward the tent where the prisoners were being held. As he walked, he took control of the small marble of space that he had just used to kill two men.

The marble of chaotic space was clean as a whistle. Not a speck of blood on it.

Then, with a slight groan of exertion, he slowly changed the form of the orb into a long but thin piece. Then, before he could begin to doubt himself, he slowly anchored the distortion to the edge of his hand. It was extremely difficult and complex, much more challenging than manipulating mana. He felt his control almost fall apart a few times, but forced himself to keep it together.

This wasn’t the first time he had tried this, far from it. During his late-night training sessions, he had attempted this very same technique. However, it hadn’t worked out that well for him. He had lost more hands and arms than he could count as he failed constantly.

However, he had a feeling that tonight was different and grinned softly to himself as he finally accomplished it. He peered at the new application he created with an exasperated smile.

The end result was beautiful to behold with his perception skill. It was a blade of pure space magic attached from the tip of his pinky all the way to his wrist. It rippled elegantly as the power he controlled tried to wrestle out of his control.

Even more beautiful was that his efforts weren't left unrewarded.

Synergy detected. Would you like to evolve and into a single skill? Notice: This will remove existing skills.

He ignored the notification he received for the time being. If he was being honest, he wanted to see if there was more he could do to influence the direction of the skill. He truly felt that there was more he could add to the skill before finalizing his decision. And he was in the perfect place to test it.