Path to Transcendence

Julius quietly watched as the robed man looked around at the crowd of Tier 3s impassively. Each second seemed like it stretched for an eternity. Nobody moved a muscle, even as over a minute of silence passed by.
Finally, the figure seemed satisfied by whatever he was looking for and slowly rose up into the air. Everyone stiffened in preparation for something; they had no clue what was going to happen or if this unknown person was an enemy or something else entirely.
“Too many humans,” the robed figure softly spoke for the first time. Despite him practically whispering, everyone in the crowd heard him perfectly, and they all tensed at the ominous words.
Whispers from the crowd began to rise as they talked among themselves. Even Aubrey quietly spoke to them. “What does he mean by too many humans?” She asked nervously.
Edgar furrowed his eyes. “No clue, but it doesn’t sound like he was praising us.”
“Yeah, it sounds like he was comparing us to a bunch of rodents or unwanted trash,” Julius added.
His friends stifled a laugh and nodded with agreement.
“So what now?” Aubrey asked them. The floating man still wasn’t doing anything, and after he spoke, he has said nothing since.
“Good question. But we should be careful, I feel like something is about to happen,” Derek noted.
As if that was the signal, Julius felt a sudden surge of mana from every direction. He swiveled around and stared at the surrounding area. It felt like someone had just erected a massive barrier.
He wasn’t the only person to have noticed either. Several other people who must have had relatively good senses had also picked up on the disturbance.
“What is it?” Aubrey asked him, recognizing that he must have felt something.
“I’m not sure, but a large field of mana has appeared around us,” he explained calmly as he continued to observe the surrounding area.
“Bad?”
“Hard to say. But based on his words earlier, I am guessing that it will solve the ‘too many humans’ problem he seemed to have,” Julius hypothesized with a grimace. He had no clue what was going to happen, but the surge of mana certainly didn’t feel like it was comforting or supportive.
It felt raw and dangerous.
“Get ready, just in case,” he warned them.
They didn’t even question him for a second. They activated all of their skills and readied themselves. Julius did the same; his kinetic energy was already being channeled through his body with vigor.
They had already talked about how they would fight if it came down to it. Edgar and Julius would be at the forefront, taking on their opponents head-on. At the same time, Derek and Aubrey would support from behind.
Derek would use his lightning magic to help slow down and cause just overall chaos amongst the enemies. Aubrey would use her clones and prismatic light beams to hit from all angles. It wasn’t the most diverse team strategy, and without Lily, they couldn’t communicate as readily.
But they should still be fine. At least that was what he hoped.
After a minute or two, he finally saw something appear on the edge of the horizon. A mass of black slowly got larger, and he sighed when he realized what this was. It looked like the robed man had brought some exterminators after all.
There were thousands of monsters all collapsing on them. Julius had no idea how the floating angel man had done it, but he had likely brought all of the surrounding monsters in the area to attack them.
“Get ready,” he said to them. They had also seen what was happening with their own eyes and prepared for the incoming attack.
Since they were on the edge of the temple’s boundary, that meant they were the first ones who would confront these monsters.
Some of the other groups behind him tried to get closer to the temple doors, using them for protection and letting the closer groups take contact first. But they weren't able to do so. Another group has already taken that spot.
Julius noticed that the large group Garrett Greyson had gathered had somehow squeezed between the other groups and the temple. He also spotted several members of the Greyson group attacking the people who tried to get closer to the temple.
Apparently, the protection that the temple afforded them was no longer in effect. They were on their own, and the stabbing in the back had already commenced.
It was unlucky for the other groups because, as much as they wanted to yell at the much larger group for being a bunch of asses, they didn’t have the opportunity to do so. The huge wave of monsters was quickly approaching, and they needed to concentrate on the incoming horde.
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Julius and his friends weren’t shocked by this, though. They already knew that the group had been planning something. Otherwise, there wasn’t a need to gather so many people. However, Julius didn’t know whether Garrett Greyson had somehow planned for this to happen. It certainly felt like it.
Julius took some time to observe the largest group and couldn’t help but smile when he spotted the mage he had fought the other day standing expressionlessly in the back. The girl who had attacked him out of nowhere was right beside him, and the same black cloak hung over her shoulders.
Julius kept an eye on them. He wanted to
to them later and didn’t want to lose them in the chaos.
He shoved those excited thoughts to the back of his mind for the time being and looked up at the floating person. They were still doing nothing and looked at the incoming swarm of monsters with a blank expression.
Julius was almost sure that this wasn’t a human being. For all he knew, it could be a greater spirit like Vailon had been. However, the feeling was different, so he wasn’t too sure. The figure’s aura was quite powerful, though.
It was well controlled, so it was hard to gauge the strength, but Julius had enough experience to know they were strong. They felt comfortable, too comfortable.
As Julius was staring at the figure, he suddenly froze when the iridescent eyes snapped to him. They met eyes, and for the first time, Julius spotted something other than cold detachment from the figure.
It was like everything in the world had vanished, and it was only the two of them. There was no external pressure, but Julius felt like he couldn’t breathe. However, he had a feeling that he shouldn’t be the first one to avert his eyes.
So despite feeling a growing sense of discomfort, he kept on staring at the figure. After what seemed like forever, he finally spotted the corner of the figure’s mouth upturned almost imperceptively. Their eyes shimmered with what seemed like amusement, and it felt like Julius’s entire soul was being rifled through.
Still, he didn’t avert his eyes. He kept on staring intensely, even as his eyes twitched, feeling the need to blink.
He used some aura to forcibly keep them open, which only seemed to make the figure even more amused.
It was only because Aubrey shook his shoulders that he was forced to break eye contact.
“Get it together, Julius. Stop daydreaming about food and get ready,” she scolded him.
“I wasn’t daydreaming about food,” he muttered in offense. Of all the things she thought he was doing, he was offended that was the first assumption she had.
She scoffed, clearly not believing him, and pointed at the monsters who were almost on top of them. “Look, it's your favorite thing, a horde of monsters who want to rip you apart,” she said brightly. She spoke in a tone that made it sound like she was trying to lure a toddler with a shiny object.
To be fair, that wasn’t that far off from what he was thinking. The horde of monsters was already making him grin and didn’t need another invitation. So before she could try to tempt him again, he had already shot off. Kinetic energy was coursing through his body like an uncontrolled explosion.
The first monsters literally exploded into pieces when he made contact with them. He had forced all of his accumulated kinetic energy into their bodies, and they didn’t have the most robust bodies, so they imploded under the intense pressure.
Julius didn’t stop at that. He recycled some of the kinetic energy to throw several blasts at the approaching monsters. They weren’t as powerful or elegant as Arthur’s, but Julius’s style would never be described as graceful in the first place. But they still held a shit ton of kinetic energy and ripped large chunks of flesh from the monsters.
He heard them roar in pain, and before he could even comprehend what he was doing, he felt himself infuse a small amount of fire mana into the crown subconsciously.
It was a dangerous and reckless act, but his body was already moving on autopilot. The crown responded just as fiercely as usual, and he grunted as he forcibly subjugated the crown. It tried to take control of his mana and his mind, but he gave it a swift kick with his soul.
He was in charge, and it was going to listen to him. With that being said, he only used the slightest bit of fire mana.
However, that was more than enough. The small amount that was transformed by the crown was already incredibly intense.
He pushed his willpower and molded the finger-sized flame around his right fist. He would have done it on both fists, but this was already too much of a risk, and so he held off.
The heat of this small flame was already screeching hot. His friends backed off from him when they felt the intense thermal energy.
His skin blackened as the flame consumed his body, but his healing skill kept the technique active. The pain was agonizing, but he did his best to shove it to the back of his mind.
Drasil pitched in as well, injecting Julius with his life mana, helping keep most of the damage at bay.
Once he had that settled, he continued his thrashing of these monsters. There were a lot, but with the other three to help him, the pressure wasn’t too bad, and he wasn’t forced to do anything drastic.
He focused on keeping the strong monsters away from Aubrey and Derek while they thinned out the weaker opponents. They weren’t that bad to be honest, it was a mixture of Tier 3 monsters. Only a few of them were actually strong. A few liberal blasts of kinetic energy efficiently handled the rest of them.
He spotted a flying blade heading right for his chest. However, since Aubrey and Derek were right behind him, he was forced to tank the attack. He created a small barrier around his arm and smacked the blade to the side.
This gave some of the other monsters time to attack him, though. He felt these monsters use some kind of restricting skill on him. It was pretty potent and backed with a Concept, but it wasn’t enough to immobilize him. He tore through their bindings with pure strength and speed.
He dashed over to them and ripped their heads off. He glanced over at Edgar to see how well his friend was faring, and to his pleasure, Edgar was doing very well. He was a volcanic bastion, using his fire and earth to block and kill any monster that came close.
As Julius admired his friend, he was alerted to another attack. He quickly sidestepped, avoiding the dozen or so missiles of mana. However, he wasn’t able to dodge all of them and used his forearm to block the attack heading right for his face.
The explosion knocked him back half a step. It had much more power than he had initially expected. However, he wasn’t bothered that he was attacked. It was the fact that it hadn’t been from any of the monsters. It had come from near the temple.
Julius looked over in the direction the missiles had come from and spotted the large group attacking the other smaller groups from behind.
The betrayal had begun, and Julius wished he could say that he was surprised. But that would be a lie. If anything, he was relieved that they were finally showing their hand.