As the martial artist was recovering from Adam's fireball attack, Segen had already traversed over one hundred meters! Adam had also begun to utilize his own wind formation and was running in Segen's direction. Adam intended to stand between Segen and the man in order to protect both Segen and Annette.

When the man started moving again, Adam started to throw wind blades to slow him down. Due to dividing his control between the wind formation that was propelling him forward and his wind blades, Adam's wind blades did not have the power to stagger the man. For every wind blade that was thrown at him, the man swung his sword to meet them. The wind blades broke like wind on a mountain.

Adam frowned. Earth essence was naturally strong. It could be utilized in a strong defense or even a strong attack. Thankfully, martial artists were extremely limited in ranged attacks to the point of them being nearly non-existent. While Adam did have the ability to attack from afar, it did not appear to have enough strength to breach the martial artist's defense. Adam never did have any type of training that could prepare him for a fight between spiritualists or spirit martial artists. This was completely new ground for him and he wasn't very certain on how to go about it. One thing he did recognize was that he had to somehow weaken the martial artist if he wanted to have a chance of killing him.

As Adam ran to protect Segen and the man chased Segen, Adam had a few seconds to think. Adam had control over the flow of earth essence. The farther away he tried to control the flow, though, the weaker it was. As he got closer and closer to the man, his chances of being able to effect the flow of earth essence in the man's body increased! The primary problem was the martial artist himself. Spiritualists enslave spirit essence with formations and that make it incredibly hard for Adam to take control of any spirit essence that 'belongs' to another spiritualist. Adam was unsure of if the circulation of spirit essence that martial artists use instead of formations would do the same. It still might be impossible for him to effect the martial artist, but Adam was determined to try!

The man was constantly sucking in earth essence from his surroundings to empower his circulation of spirit essence. Adam subjected the earth essence around the man under his control before the man absorbed them into his body. Adam could tell as soon as the earth essence under his control entered the martial artist's body that his plan would have some measure of success! The circulation enforced a strong control over the spirit essence, but it was not unbreakable! Compared to a spiritualist's enslavement of spirit essence, this was a weak form of control. This allowed the circulation to be more flexible than the rigid formations, but it would also be this martial artist's downfall!

In the few seconds Adam had used to prepare everything, he had already passed Segen by and was almost in front of the man! The man gave off a wicked grin as he prepared to strike Adam with his sword! Just as the man was about to strike, Adam struck first! Adam' disrupted the man's circulation of earth essence! It could not stop the circulation, but it caused it to go out of the man's control! Some of the man's muscles contorted and contracted on themselves causing a look of pain and shock to enter the man's eyes! Adam stopped directly in front of the man. Adam wasn't sure if his wind blades would have the strength to kill the man, even with him weakened, so he decided to concentrate over a ton's worth of earth essence into his staff to kill the man!

Adam had learned from the last time he had tried to push that much earth essence through his body. It could have broken many of his bones of even killed him if he had not been lucky the last time! Instead, Adam caused a massive amount of earth essence to directly enter the bottom of his staff that was now touching the ground. This caused the ground to explode as the staff rocketed forward, straight at the man! The man managed to put up the flat of his sword to block the blow. The strength of Adam's attack was too great, however, and the man's sword was shoved toward his chest. A crack was issued when Adam's staff and the sword hit the man's chest! The man then staggered backward a few steps as he cried out in pain. He then once again regained his posture and his control over the circulation of spirit essence in his body.

Adam was dismayed! This strike was intended to kill the man, not just crack some of his ribs! With interest, the man asked: “How did you effect my circulation like that!?”

Adam only met the man's words with silence. He was too busy trying to figure out a way to actually kill him to trade banter with him! After no response from Adam, the man simply harrumphed before setting himself up to continue fighting. In fact, he seemed even more eager to fight as though this only posed an interesting challenge for him.

Adam started to retreat while throwing wind blades and the occasional fire ball in the man's direction, none of which were effective! Adam was starting to get a little desperate. Segen had continued towards the hut after passing Adam, but had collapsed somewhere along the way! Adam had to finish the fight fast so he could attend to Segen.

A thought came to Adam to help him turn the tides, but he loathed to execute it. Adam glanced once more over to Segen before deciding to go through with it after all. Adam started to call upon the death essence in his bones! It surged with glee and tried to break from Adam's control! Adam forced it to submit using the technique to form threads of death essence he had learned long ago. The threads were incredibly small, nothing like what he could create in the plane of death, but he merged it with the wind essence in his bones! Together, he weaved a new tune, a new formation of spirit essence. Adam created a wind blade imbued with the aura of death! Death was intangible, even more so than air. The only thing that could defend against death was life itself. The martial artist before Adam was using earth essence to defend himself physically, but Adam hoped this attack on the man's unprotected 'life' would be enough to turn the tables!

Adam launched the wind blade at the man. The man somehow felt this blade was different, but could only defend like he had done before. The wind blades were too fast for him to dodge on his own. The form of the wind blade broke apart upon his sword as he defended, but the untouchable death essence invaded his body! The earth essence circulating in his body still managed to act as a buffer, but the man couldn't help but feel a sudden intense wave of nausea flow over him!

Immediately after the wind blade, Adam launched a fireball that was also imbued with death essence! Adam only had so much spirit essence in his body to mix with the death essence so he had to stagger his usage. The man, who was now acting sluggish, attempted to block this new fireball with his sword. As he did so, Adam once again effected the circulation of the man's spirit essence. The fireball pushed the sword away as the man almost lost his grasp on it. The fireball was followed by another wind blade that was the first to finally hit the man! With his defenses down, the wind blade cut across the man's chest! The wound wasn't deep, though, and would not out right kill the man. The man was starting to panic as Adam quickly slipped in range of his staff again! The ground exploded as it once again transferred a ton of earth essence into the tip of Adam's staff as it once again rocketed towards the man's chest! The staff pierced through the cut made by the wind blade and finally crushed its way through the man's ribs and his heart! The man made a grasping motion as disbelief colored his face. He then slumped as all life finally left his body.

Adam wrenched his staff free of the man's chest and gave a brief sorrowful look at all the cracks that had started snaking across the staff. Adam put the sorrow out of his mind as he quickly started walking over to Segen and Annette, was now worrying over him. Segen was very pale and his arm was loosing a lot of blood. Adam gently moved Annette to the side while saying: “Let me take a look.”

The amputation of Segen's arm was rather clean. The martial artist's sword was sharp and had easily cut through Segen's arms. Most of the veins clamped down on themselves, helping to reduce Segen's bleeding. The most worry some thing was that Segen's artery was still spurting blood! Adam quickly raised his hand over Segen's arm and controlled a flow of earth essence to move dirt in a constrictive ring around Segen's arm, which slowed the bleeding, but couldn't stop it. Adam once more looked at the amputation then looked back at Segen with some hesitation. Segen wasn't fully focusing so Adam lifted his head up a bit and directly talked to him: “Segen, listen to me. We have to close your wound and I only have one method to do that. It is going to hurt a lot. Bear with me.”

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Segen seemed to barely register what Adam was saying. Adam reached down and picked up a semi soft mass of dirt he had made with the flow of earth essence while talking with Segen. Although it was soft, it was still firm enough that Segen would not be able to bite through it. Annette wasn't sure what to be doing as Adam put his hand close to Segen's amputation. A flame came to life in the palm of his hand as he pressed it against Segen's wound! Through the mass of dirt in his mouth, Segen could be heard screaming as Adam carefully burned the wound and cauterized it. Adam finished as swiftly as he could. Segen was still shivering from pain when Adam finally said: “It's done!”

Annette had tears in her eyes and looked nearly as exhausted as Segen. She had been tense with worry during the whole time they were being chased and she could seemingly provide no help, even now. Adam carefully picked up Segen and carried him to the hut. Adam placed Segen down on the spare bed, after which he quickly passed out. Adam looked at Annette: “I know you are tired and stressed right now, but I need to know what is going on.”

Annette nodded. After taking a few breaths and taking a reassuring look at the slumbering Segen, she told her tale: “That deranged man was the leader of a small group of ruffians. They came into the inn and demanded some rooms. We normally take pay up front, but they weren't willing to pay even though they demanded the rooms! Father didn't want any trouble so he was willing to let things slide but... that man wanted me to 'service' him in his bed! Segen couldn't stand for such a thing so he immediately confronted the man... I don't know who attacked first but they started fighting! I couldn't believe that man could stand against Segen, but he did! Segen couldn't win over the man so he took me and fled. That man... followed us all the way here! Segen was faster, but the man would catch up when Segen had to take breaks from carrying me in addition to running himself... Just a little while ago, the man finally got a sneak attack in on Segen and cut his arm off! I... why did this all have to happen? Who was that man!?”

Adam shook his head. “I don't know. Don't worry too much, though. It sounds like that man was the only strong one in that group. After Segen has rested a while, we need to get him back to Korrin to receive some proper treatment for his arm... then the two of you will have to go to the city of Frieden and Segen will join the SILU institute there where they can protect him from any power friends that man might have. Neither of you may refuse to go!”

Everything that needed to be said had been said. Annette was also extremely tired, so she passively agreed with Adam before going to sleep. Adam watched over the two of them while many thoughts raged through his head. Adam was happy that Segen had survived. Clearly his choice in making Segen into a spiritualist was a good one, otherwise Segen would be dead now! Still, Adam couldn't believe that this had happened. Why did the world always do this kind of thing to Adam's loved ones while he was away!?

While keeping an eye on Segen and Annette, Adam also kept watch out for anyone else approaching the hut. A few hours later, Adam saw a group of five men cautiously approaching the area. Adam had pried a description of the others who were with the man and these five matched. When they saw the body of the man who attacked Segen earlier, fright seemed to flush through their souls as they prepared to flee. It was too late, however. From his hut, Adam simply waved his hand and five separate streams of fire essence descended on the men. Fire quickly combusted out of thin air and surrounded the men! They screamed in fright and pain as the fire quickly found it's way into their mouths and seared their lungs! The fire wasn't strong enough to quickly kill the men on its own, so Adam shoved it down their throats to ensure their death! Five normal men were no match for Adam, even if they were still around six hundred meters away. Adam didn't like the idea of just leaving the bodies around in what could be considered his yard, so he then controlled the flow of earth essence such that he bodies sunk into the earth and were easily buried.

The next morning, Segen woke up with a lot of pain. Unfortunately, Adam had nothing to give him to ease the pain. After Segen had rested some and was properly fed, Adam had them start the trip back to Korrin. The sooner Segen had his injury looked at, the better. To protect Segen's arm, Adam put a kind of cast over it made from dirt he solidified into an almost rock like form. He used the flow of earth essence to create it and made sure there were no living organisms in the dirt he used to create the cast. The dirt still had that dormant life essence hidden within it, though, and Adam hoped that it might somehow help with the healing of the injury.

Segen himself couldn't help but constantly look at his now missing right arm. It was so odd. Even though he remembered how the martial artist had cut off his arm, he still couldn't help but think that his arm should be right there. It was a very odd feeling that was hard to put to words.

Adam supported Segen during the trip. Segen had exhausted himself from utilizing the wind formation to speed him along all the way from Korrin until he reached Adam. With the pain in addition, Segen really couldn't walk too far on his own.

It took more than a few days, but they finally reached Korrin and took Segen to the only healer in town. The town itself was abuzz with what happened. The town rarely got this exciting or frightening. Segen had made a good impression on a few people in town so there plenty who were worried about both him and Annette. While the healer was looking at Segen's wound, Annette's parents arrived. Word had spread fast and someone had quickly told the parents that they were back.

Annette's father was very grateful towards Segen. He still had some reservations about his daughter marrying one of their patrons, even though he liked Segen. However, Segen had just shown that he was truly willing to protect Annette, his wife, at all costs. He had even lost an arm because of it. After everyone had calmed down some, Adam told everyone his plan.

“We don't know if that martial artist was part of a larger group. We need to take Segen and Annette to the city of Frieden. That is the closest city that has a SILU institute. Segen will join SILU who can protect him and he can continue his studies as a spiritualist with them. There are no other options! We will need to find a cart and a horse and I will take them with the fastest haste to Frieden!”

This was quite sudden for Annette's parents. They had no idea what had happened to their daughter and son-in-law when they had fled. Just after they got back, they suddenly had to leave again? Before they could even speak out, though, Segen had already started to talk: “Uncle-”

“No matter what you have to say, you will be going Segen! Don't try to convince me otherwise!”

“It's not that! Uncle... you should stay and continue to purify. Annette and I can go on our own.”

Adam wasn't sure if Segen was actually thinking straight. Just let them go alone while Segen was still weak? “I can always come back later. Your safety is more important than that!”

Segen shook his head. “Uncle, when you saw that martial artist and started to fight him, you looked different from how you normally do. You had suddenly gained this... indomitable aura that said nothing would out do you! I know you have had a hard life and that is part of what gave you that kind of aura. I want to be like that too! To have the strength, power, and determination to defend my family! I can't gain any of that if you try to constantly protect me! We will be headed to Frieden where it is more populated. If we encounter any troubles, it will be a simple matter for me to take Annette and flee to the nearest garrison for help. Even if I seem weak, I can still use my formations!”

Segen lifted his head and formed some complex movements as he drew a symbol in the air that was invisible to everyone besides Adam. The formation completed and a wind rushed through the room! Segen looked at Adam. “Tell me, was my formation any weaker than normal?”

“...No.”

Segen took Annette's hand and said: “So, uncle, I am going to do what you have always told me to do. I am going to settle down and start my own little family. I will work at SILU and continue on my path as a spiritualist and become as strong as you. We will be waiting for you to visit our little family, after you have finished purifying the death essence from your body.”

Adam was a little stunned by this sudden outburst. While they had been talking, Annette's parents seemed to have come to a decision themselves. “Well, we can't just let our one and only daughter just walk out on us. We will sell or trade the inn for a wagon and travel supplies. I hope them SILU folk will pay you well Segen, since you will have to put us up too!”

With that, the plans seemed set, whether or not Adam liked it. Adam mentally debated on if he should still force his way in and accompany them all the way to Frieden, but he decided to trust in Segen. As he came to this decision, the thought: “Is this what mom thought when I joined the Silver Saviors and started subjugating bandits? Segen is truly going off on his own and starting to lead his own life...”

The next two days seemed to pass quickly and before Adam knew it, he was saying farewells to Segen and the others. They had a decent wagon pulled by a horse and went on their way to the city of Frieden. After watching them leave for a certain distance, Adam too left Korrin in the opposite direction. Suddenly feeling very lonely, Adam started his trip back to his hut by the volcano.