Path to Transcendence

Julius was quite happy to see that he had gained a good number of levels in his skills. It was just proof that his fight with Riven had been a good idea. Three levels wasn’t the most he had gotten from a fight, but considering it was from a Tier 3, it might have been even more impressive.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to admire his skills at the moment. As he and his friends recovered some stamina, he looked over at the entrance of the temple.
Julius didn’t like what he saw. Now that the monsters had been taken care of, there was a significant drop in the number of people. He had seen a large number of them get overwhelmed and run off somewhere. Another good number of them were dead on the ground.
This meant that Garrett and his group were suddenly the dominant force. Julius believed that this had been part of Garrett’s plan. He didn’t know how the Greyson Scion knew that this kind of situation might happen, but before the large number of random groups had prevented Garrett from making any drastic moves. However, there was much less resistance now.
Julius would also have to take into account that Garrett’s group was working together, while the other groups were a collection of random people with no shared purpose.
“Was this part of his plan?” Julius asked Riven.
“Yes, Garrett seemed pretty confident that something would happen that would reduce the number of competitors and give us the advantage afterwards,” Riven answered.
Julius nodded and pulled his attention from Garrett to look at the mysterious figure still floating in the sky, doing absolutely nothing. He wasn’t the only person, either. Most of the crowd that was still around was staring at this figure to see what they would say or do.
Some were visibly nervous. They were probably just hoping that the figure wouldn’t send out another horde of monsters. Julius wouldn’t have minded that, though. He felt like he missed some of the excitement because of his fight with Riven.
He noticed that many people were tired. The ones who looked pretty lively were the ones from Garrett’s group.
Almost five minutes passed with the floating man doing nothing. However, to Julius’s relief as well as to the relief of many others, the man finally moved.
They all watched with bated breath when the figure stopped in front of the open doors. The iridescent light spilling out of the doorway has a shimmering beauty. People were already inching forward, impatiently wanting to get in.
However, they didn’t do that. They all remembered how the figure had vaporized the people who had touched him previously. They didn’t want to experience the same thing by making a similar mistake.
The robed angelic man slowly floated back down to the ground and examined the group of people with his rainbow colored eyes. There was a subtle but intense pressure being exuded, and Julius could feel the mounting tension.
“Okay, this seems like a better number,” the man called, his voice just as melodic and bored as before.
“Those who have five tokens may proceed inside. Those who don’t and still want to try to get inside can enter at their own risk. You will probably be ripped apart before you can take a step inside,” the man said with a shrug before turning around and walking inside.
It was like a starting signal had been released, and Julius watched as everyone sprinted toward the entrance.
However, much to his expectations, Julius watched as Garrett’s little group interfered before they could get close. Large coordinated attacks rained down on the incoming people. Large barriers and shields were deployed right in time, blocking the attacks.
“What in the hell do you think you are doing!?” One of the people attacked shouted out.
“Yeah! What is your problem?!” Another girl yelled.
“Are you guys surprised? House Greyson has always been full of little dishonorable shits. This is right up their alley. Cowardly Garrett gathered a bunch of shitty little minions to control who can enter the trial and ultimately to try and control who passes on through the third stage,” a rugged-looking guy with a massive sledgehammer slung over his shoulder said with a scoff. His voice rang out across the entire field, as if he were speaking through a microphone.
Julius looked over at Riven, who looked a little peeved at that comment. Julius didn’t blame him for being upset either; technically speaking, Riven was still part of Garrett’s group and grouped with the other “shitty little minions”.
A chorus of upset voices blasted across the field. Then a boisterous laugh cut through the noise like a razor-sharp sword.
“Why are you guys complaining? This is amazing! We get to fight even more!”
Everyone simultaneously turned to look at the voice; even Garrett’s group turned their attention to the voice. Julius, on the other hand, felt a chill run up his spine. He felt like he had heard this voice before.
He slowly turned his head and grimaced when he saw exactly who he was thinking of. A massive form loomed over everyone else. Isaac, the person who had confronted Julius in the hallway, was the person who had laughed.
How this guy was around the same age as everyone else was a total mystery to Julius. The guy looked like he was thirty years old, and this was taking into account that people aged slowly and thirty-year-olds could have been a hundred years old.
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It would appear he wasn’t the only person who had recognized Isaac. He heard murmurs from the crowd and even some anxious whispers from Garrett’s group. It didn’t sound like they were thrilled about fighting Isaac.
More than a few people recognized Isaac by the sounds of it and weren’t afraid to yell at the boisterous guy.
“Shut up, you battle maniac. Not all of us can fight for a week straight like you!”
“Yeah, keep out of this, you big brute! You are going to make things worse.” A girl yelled out aggressively.
Julius, on the other hand, was very interested to see how it would unfold. He was already preparing his mana for the incoming confrontation.
He made sure his friends were doing okay. He had Drasil heal them beforehand, and their mana pools had mostly recovered. They had done a good job on conserving mana. It was a stark difference from their fight in the Endless Forest.
Isaac’s aura was already on full display, tyrannically pressuring everyone in the vicinity. It didn’t matter who you were; the aura attempted to dominate everything. Isaac’s smile was so wide, Julius thought he was going to split the corners of his lips.
However, just as the mounting tension was about to reach a precipice, the robed man appeared once again. This time, there wasn’t a bored expression on his face. Now the man looked annoyed. And his annoyance was directed at the large group that was blocking the entrance.
“Who do you think you are?” The man said, dangerously quiet. However, no one missed what he said.
A burst of aura flared out from the man, and the entire surrounding crowd dropped to their knees. It was brutal and indescribably powerful. Julius had not experienced anything like it in his life. He was barely able to keep his footing and had to use all of his willpower and aura control to keep the pressure at bay.
He could barely breathe; it felt like Cain was crushing his chest with his bare hands.
“You think you have the right to control who can enter the trial and who can’t?” Disbelief colored the man’s voice as his iridescent eyes glowed dangerously. He slowly drifted toward the large group kneeling in front of the door and looked at them with disdain.
“You don’t think I have felt your divination magic attempting to predict what would happen? You think I am so blind?” Disbelief was slowly transforming into actual rage. Another surge of aura washed over the field, increasing the pressure on everyone.
People were sent sprawling to the floor, face pressed into the dirt as they cried in agony. Some of the ones with weaker willpowers were already bleeding from their orifices, while some were completely unmoving.
Julius felt all the color in the world fade away and was desperately clinging to his sanity. He had dropped to his knees and gritted his teeth through the pain. The pain wasn’t as bad as the pain from the crown, but the power he felt from this aura was way more intense. He felt utterly helpless as this pressure immobilized him. He glared up at the figure who was still speaking.
“You were able to use it because I allowed it. Your arrogance offends me, and if not for the rules, I would have killed all of you already.”
, he yelled out in his mind.
Julius suddenly choked on his tongue, and the pressure intensified even further.
He quickly found out the reason for this increase. He suddenly found himself under the intense gaze of the floating man. Their rainbow colored eyes felt like they were staring into the depths of his soul.
“I killed the ones from before because one of them had the gall to touch me,” the man stated; however, it felt like he was speaking directly to Julius.
Julius asked himself.
The man didn’t respond this time, but Julius watched with anxiousness when the man slowly floated down toward his position.
Julius was still on one knee, struggling to stay up, when the man finally landed next to Julius. His sharp gaze fell onto him, and the weight on his soul increased even further.
“Such resolve,” the man said in a whisper. Leaning forward, practically touching nose to nose. Intrigue and amusement were clear on his face. A huge difference from the annoyance he had displayed previously
It was only then that he took the time to look around at the other people. To his surprise, he was the only person not crawling on their faces. Even Isaac, the big brute, was shouting out deafeningly as he tried to stand up, but was unable to.
Perhaps on a different day or with a different person, Julius might have felt a bit proud of his achievement. However, as the pressure continued to build and his soul struggled to hold on, he began to believe that having this man’s attention was a bad thing.
“Just how far can you go?” The man asked ominously, his aura continuing to hammer down on Julius. The weight was already too much, and Julius was forced to create a small explosion within his soul to alleviate some of the pressure.
He took a gasping breath in the split second of relief that it created, but he was quickly assaulted once more. What was up with people beating him up with their auras? Why couldn’t they just beat him up the old-fashioned way? At this point, he would much prefer that over this soul torture.
“What was that?” The man asked, his eyes shimmering with curiosity, when he felt Julius’s soul implosion technique.
Julius tried to reply, but all he got out was a garbled mess of words. At first, he liked this person because they had insulted Garrett and prevented the group from stopping the others from entering the temple. However, he was quickly changing his mind.
This man was just an asshole.
Julius would have told him that in many colorful ways, but sadly, he was about to reach his breaking point. He could handle the pain, but there was nothing he could do about the weight collapsing on his soul. It was like trying to stop a mountain falling from the sky.
He squeezed his eyes shut and roared out, blasting his aura out with as much force as possible. He was attempting to create a technique that mimicked his soul explosion technique, but one that would permanently relieve the pressure.
Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to work, and all he ended up doing was causing his soul even more damage.
He was at his breaking point and was about to just attack this person. He knew he would likely be killed with a single wave of the man’s hand. But he would be killed this way, too.
“Ah, there it is. Please, try it. Please give me an excuse to kill you,” the man said with a laugh.
Julius screamed out and exploded his soul one more time, creating just enough of an opening so that he could gather and weave together some mana. He used everything at his disposal, without holding back. [Void Strike] was already prepared, and he had cocked his fist back.
The robed man wore an excited grin as he looked at the fist, not bothering to move out of the way.
Julius didn’t care about being killed in here, but he wouldn’t allow this fucker to bully him like this. That was unacceptable, and so he readied himself.
However, just before he punched the man, a sudden force washed over him. It was very different from the one he had experienced with the rainbow-eyed man. It was warm and invigorating. More importantly, this new force wiped out whatever aura pressure the man had been using on Julius.
His soul felt light as a feather now that it was no longer being crushed. It was only then that he heard a voice call out from behind him.
“That is quite enough, Cadius.”