Chapter 497

To his immense surprise, Aubrey didn’t gloat or boast about winning. If anything, she seemed upset with him. He didn’t know why, and when he tried asking, all he got in reply was a loud huff before she walked away.

It was so odd, usually she would never lose an opportunity to tease him or to gloat about her victory, yet she didn’t. He probed her aura with his own, feeling suspicious that something might be wrong. There was even a chance that this wasn’t actually...

“What are you doing?” She swung her head back around to glare at him.

“What?” He acted innocent.

“Why were you probing my aura like that?” 

He stayed silent and pretended that he didn’t hear her, walking by her as he searched for a token or any treasures hidden in the bodies.

“Wait, did you think…” she trailed off and rolled her eyes. “You are such an idiot,” she finished and shook her head.

“Rude.”

He didn’t understand women.

***

“Found it!” He said, exhausted, and sighed in relief. The stench was really becoming too much for him. Aubrey was lucky because she was using her clones to search the bodies, but all he had were some mana constructs stuffed in his nose, which were annoyingly insufficient in blocking out the smell.

The fact that a good number of them were burnt didn’t help matters, but he endured it, and because of that, he found a token stuffed inside the chest of one of the dead monsters.

Aubrey quickly came running over to him with an excited look on her face. He threw it over to her, and she reflexively caught it mid-air. That was a mistake, though. The token was covered in the monster’s revolting fluids. 

“Ack!” She shouted and dropped the token to the floor. 

He laughed at her reaction, but failed to react when she decided to wipe her hands all over his neck. 

“Motherf—”

This time, it was her laughing at him. 

“Touche,” he said with a conceding nod after he used some aura to clean his neck.

She cleaned the token off and fiddled with it in her hands. “So what now?” She asked him.

“I don’t know. Keep on looking for more tokens and treasures seems like the only real option. We both have two now, and I feel like we will get more as long as we continue to head toward that pillar of light,” he answered. 

“Sounds good. Maybe we can find Derek and Edgar along the way, too,” she added.

He nodded. “Yeah, hopefully we come across them. Let’s deal with these people before we head off, though.”

She scrunched her brows in confusion. “What people?” 

“The people who have been watching us for the past couple of minutes,” he said with a shrug.

“Are you just telling me this now?” She asked him with a disappointed frown.

He shrugged again. “They are just a bunch of opportunistic scumbags with mediocre stealth skills,” he tried to explain to her. 

Making fun of someone’s stealth skill was pretty ironic coming from a person who didn’t even have one. At least Aubrey had one, and despite her primarily using it in tandem with her clones rather than to sneak around, it was still quite good. 

Although, to be fair, he was only talking this way about these people because their aura hinted at some nasty intentions. Their stealth skills were honestly more powerful than most other Tier 3s he had come across. Only those who specialized in those skills were better than they were.

After all, these were some of the Empire’s most talented. It would have been embarrassing if they weren’t able to conceal some of their presence.

It was just too bad that his senses were pretty attuned, and only those with unique skills were a true danger. Of course, some more powerful people could hide from him, but in that case, it wouldn’t matter. If they were that strong, then they probably wouldn’t have to bother with ambushing Julius.

He delved deeper, narrowing his focus on the four guys standing off in the distance. He was much more careful than he had been with Aubrey a few minutes ago. He attempted to use his ruinous aura to destroy any trace his probe made.

It had been an idea he had come up with after that Vale girl had probed his aura. She had similarly destroyed her aura trail. He wanted to replicate that ability, and this was the best way he had found.

It somewhat worked. It wasn’t perfect, but his trail was definitely less noticeable to his aura senses. It was also a nice encouragement that his idea had merit. He would definitely have to continue working on it in the future.

Just imagining that day made him chuckle. 

“I know what you are doing, and stop it. We told you it comes off as creepy and freaks people out,” Aubrey said with a palm to her face.

“I’m just excited,” he argued. 

“Yeah, let me guess. Are you excited about training another skill on them?”

He didn’t answer her. He didn’t speak with delusional fools. As if he would ever do something as crazy as be excited about practicing a technique or skill against an opponent. Women were crazy.

“That’s what I thought,” she said with an exasperated click of her tongue. 

He didn’t meet her eyes, not giving her the satisfaction.

His aura finally started to delve deeper into these hidden people. He didn’t think any of them had noticed it yet, but he continued to be careful. If he made the slightest mistake or fluctuation, these people were likely to notice him.

If he were on his own, he would have been more careless, but with Aubrey, he made sure not to mess up. He kept tight control and wove his aura through their defenses like a snake sneaking up on its prey.

However, when he touched their aura, he almost recoiled upon sensing some of their intentions and nearly lost control of his aura from sheer surprise and revulsion.

Reading people’s intentions was much easier than a monster or a spiritual being like Drasil. He was able to glean a lot of information just from that small peek. 

And he didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Aubrey stepped next to him, as if sensing his change of attitude.

“How many?” She asked.

“Four of them. Two warriors, an archer, and what seems to be a mage of some kind. The archer and the warrior with the shield are the two to worry about,” Julius stated calmly, keeping a rein on his feelings of contempt boiling to the surface.

“Two,” Aubrey stated firmly.

“Two?” He repeated questioningly.

“I want two of them to myself, don’t interfere.” She told him, sounding eerily composed and serious.

He was about to argue with her, but one feel of her aura was enough for him not to argue. Ever since their time in the Endless Forest, he realized that all of his friends had grown—some in different ways than others. 

In Aubrey’s case, she had become much more mature and committed. Julius loved Aubrey no matter her many faults, not even her immaturity and tendency to shove her own foot in her mouth could make him dislike her. But in recent months, she has grown substantially.

He had been slowly noticing it in the recent weeks, but seeing her not tease him about the bet she won confirmed it. She had changed and truly matured.

“Two, but if you look like you are going to die, I am stepping in,” he conceded.

She looked like she was about to argue with him, so he cut her off before she had the chance. “That is my condition; otherwise, I will deal with them myself.”

She reluctantly nodded and swiftly began prepping herself for the incoming fight. Brilliant purple mana covered her body as her crystal defensive skill formed over her skin. 

Julius, on the other hand, was already ready. The moment these people made a single move, he was going to rip them apart. He promised Aubrey that he would leave her two, but two of them would be left to his own discretion.

These people finally seemed to give up on being stealthy; they must have seen their reaction and understood the game was up, because Julius watched as various attacks soared through the sky.

One was a simple mana bolt, plain but powerful. There were some additional aspects to it that stood out, such as the sturdy structure of the spell. It didn’t have much, but many people would likely find it difficult to disrupt the attack. Furthermore, considering that it came from the shield warrior, it was quite an impressive display. 

On top of that, there were several spears of ice coming at them from the mage. Much like the shield warrior, these projectiles were very sturdy. Julius could also sense some powerful Ice Concepts tucked inside these spears. They were freezing the air as they approached.

Finally, and probably the most worrisome, was the barrage of extremely fast arrows raining down on them. These arrows were plentiful, and they were dangerous. Each of them had this deadly feeling of death and toxicity that set off his alarm bells.

He glanced at Aubrey and back at these incoming attacks. Then he decided to take care of the archer and the mage first. Letting Aubrey have the two warriors instead. 

His aura expanded, snarling as it touched upon these people’s auras once more. Their intentions toward him, and more specifically toward Aubrey, made him sick and angry. While he had met plenty of decent people, even amongst his opponents, this was one of the rare times that he had no sympathy for his opponents.

He allowed this apathy and anger to feed into this aura, fueling the already potent, ruinous effect. All of these attacks made contact with his aura, and while he could have stopped most, if not all of them, he decided to let some of them through. 

Aubrey had asked him to let her fight two of them after all. He would give her this chance to grow on her own. He wouldn’t always be there to protect his friends, and this was the perfect chance for her to test herself.

He mainly focused on the death-attuned arrows. He ripped apart their mana structures; his aura was like a sledgehammer as he shattered the arrows into little mana particles. The Death Concept coming off from these arrows was more challenging to handle, but to his surprise, his Phoenix Concept roared to the surface even without his intent to do so.

It felt like it was responding to a challenge, and his Phoenix Concept devoured the archer’s Death Concept like it was nothing, displaying how much more potent and authoritative his concept was. 

The archer flinched in pain as he must have felt some sort of backlash from a collapsed technique. Julius smiled at that and dashed toward the archer and mage who were still toward the backlines.

The two warriors attempted to stop him from doing so, but they were just too slow. Fast for Tier 3s, but pathetically slow to Julius when he was pumping so much aura, mana, and kinetic energy through his body.

A sword flashed over his head as he leaned down, and the shield bearer attempted to slam him with his massive shield. They were grinning as they tried their best to kill him, constantly looking in Aubrey’s direction with lecherous looks. Julius could practically taste their anticipation, and that made his final bit of patience snap.

Julius usually held back his aura on account of how destructive and deadly it could be, but these circumstances were different. He didn’t bother holding back his aura anymore. It was released in an explosive wave, directed at these people.

He didn’t want his aura to destroy their skills. No, he focused his aura to do one thing. 

Cause as much fear and pain in these four people as it could. He wanted them to suffer a little bit, and he smiled when he heard their cries of agony and distress. The two warriors were closer, so they had to withstand more of it than the archer and mage. 

Their cries only made him ramp up the pressure, letting his aura run rampant as it wreaked havoc on these scumbags. The only reason he stopped was because he heard Aubrey shouting at him, reminding him of their agreement. 

He grimaced, but nodded. He did promise her, and he would allow her to have her chance. He dashed forward and backhanded the swordsman with his right hand, sending him flying toward Aubrey. The shield warrior was a bit more hefty, so Julius opted for a front kick, sending the armored piece of shit toward her as well.

As much as he wanted to take out these two, he held himself back. Thankfully, there were two more eager volunteers nearby. He smiled viciously at them and enjoyed seeing their shocked expressions.

He was going to have some fun.