He let out a shaky breath. There was no way to confirm whether or not, these men were working for Duke Greyson. For all he knew, these were just random coincidences.

However, he had the perfect person to ask right in front of him.

He tucked away the papers into his own ring and looked down at the two people, one of whom was still unconscious.

“What’s your name?” He asked him. This time his voice had much more steel in it.

The man unsurprisingly stayed silent. Julius sighed and turned his attention toward the other man. He created a sharp sword of mana and had it hover on the unconscious man’s leg. Only then did he look back at the other guy with an expectant look.

However, he didn’t seem to be taking Julius’s threat seriously at all. He mostly likely saw Julius’s young age and assumed that it was an empty threat. A bluff.

Julius had to show this man that he wasn’t bluffing and that he was to be taken seriously. “Still not willing to answer?” He asked the man again.

The man just gave him a rebellious glare. It was expected but he really underestimated Julius’s desperation to find answers. The moment he saw that crest within their belongings, he had moved these men to a different category of people.

Without giving any warning he stabbed down the sword of mana through the unconscious man’s leg. Stabbing through his thigh and out the back.

“Joel,” the man said quickly.

See, it wasn’t that hard.

“And his?” Julius pointed at the man with a sword in his leg.

“Ruban,” the man said with gritted teeth.

“Okay, Joel. I want to know how you and Ruban managed to find and then track me throughout the city,” Julius demanded.

“It was just a coincidence,” Joel answered begrudgingly.

“Elaborate.”

Joel pressed his lips together and hesitated. But Julius’s creation of another sword dissipated those feelings pretty quickly.

“Ruban remembered hearing about a young boy with a black cloth covering his face beating up some of the people we had working for us. It was only by coincidence that we saw you while walking around,” Joel said.

Julius had his aura sense on full blast trying to sense if he was lying to Julius. But everything he said was seemingly true, there weren’t any noticeable deviations within his aura. He could be still lying but Julius was positioned to believe him for now.

“That’s it? So how did you track me so well?” He asked.

“Ruban has a tracking skill,” Joel said like that explained everything.

It did, in a way. He also didn’t really care about the particulars of the skill, that wasn’t important.

Finally, he asked the only question he really cared about. “What is your connection with House Greyson?”

This question seemed to catch the man off guard. Julius felt the man’s aura constrict and the man swallowed his saliva nervously.

“I don’t have any affiliation with them,” the guy shook his head earnestly, but Julius knew he was lying.

Honestly, that was the only reaction he needed. This man was most likely working for or had some kind of affiliation with House Greyson. And that pretty much decided the man’s fate.

However, he still had his morals and didn’t just execute the man immediately because he learned that he was involved with House Greyson. No, he would give him a chance to prove himself worthy to live.

Julius gave the man, Joel a chillingly cold look. “If I let you go, will you try to come after me again?”

The man looked at Julius with steady eyes. “No, I promise we will not come after you again.”

That was a lie.

He sensed the man’s aura jump up for the second time since he started questioning them. He had no plan of letting Julius go after this. If Julius let this man and his friend go, he would most likely have to keep an eye over his shoulder the rest of the time he was in Heston.

Still, he would give the man a chance. He prepared himself to give the best performance of his life, one worthy of an Oscar.

He turned to look at Joel with a nod and a grimace. Then with a jerk of his shoulders, he released the shackles, and his armor that was covering him dissipated into motes of mana. He took in large deep gasping breaths and his hands shook slightly. He slumped to his knees with his head down toward the ground.

He pretended that he was out of mana and was tired. He wanted to see what this man would do. He knew that this Joel person was lying about leaving him alone, but he wanted to see if you would attempt to kill him at the first opportunity. That would determine Joel and his friend’s fate.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Julius was hoping that he was wrong, he really was.

Unfortunately, he was swiftly disappointed when Joel immediately attacked him. There was no hesitation and he moved to kill Julius. The idiot didn’t even suspect that it was a ploy for single second. A large orb of condensed fire mana and a wave of fire was launched at Julius’s face.

The armor that he had just removed was quickly put back into place and he activated [Barrier of Severance] to cut through most of the attack. The rest was taken care of by his armor. He saw the realization light up in Joel’s eyes. The realization that he had been played.

“Wait wait, I-” Julius didn’t allow him to finish. He controlled the sword that was still stuck in Joel’s friend’s leg and detonated it. With no active defenses or barriers, the explosion tore through the other man with ease. It killed him instantly.

He was surprised at the lack of guilt he felt as he did so.

Joel looked at him with bloodshot eyes. “I am going to fucking kill you!”

Julius looked at him with calm eyes. “I gave you a chance. Before I kill you just remember that.”

Joel responded by throwing every bit of fire mana at Julius with no holding back. It was sloppy, but the sheer amount of mana made Julius focus on protecting himself. He set up large panes of barriers around himself and intercepted many of the attacks. The rest, he used [Flash Step] to avoid.

The barrage didn’t last forever. Before long, the man’s mana was exhausted and he gave a pleading look at Julius. “Please, don’t kill me. I didn’t mean it.”

He was still lying. His aura control was even more sloppy than previously and it was very obvious now.

When the man saw Julius create a spike of mana his eyes widened in fear. However, the man seemed to have one last trick up his sleeve. He discreetly removed a metal ball from his storage ring into the hand hidden behind his back. He probably still didn’t know that Julius could see everything he was doing.

Suddenly Joel’s fearful look turned to determination. Julius felt the man start to charge the object with something. He didn’t know what it was, but felt soul energy but much more potent. It felt as if the man’s life essence that draining into the object.

However, Julius wasn’t going to just allow whatever last-ditch attack this man was trying to achieve actually go off. He immediately used all of his will to crush the man with kinetic energy and froze him like a statue. Without hesitating he sent the spike of mana and lodged it inside the man’s chest.

He tried to contain as much of the explosion as he could, but it still made a mess of the man’s corpse.

Another thing that he noticed was that he had been slightly too slow. The man had been able to activate the metal ball with his last vestiges of will. Julius had no idea what it was, but going off of the large pulsing bursts of fire mana building up within it, it was pretty safe to say it wasn’t a last-minute apology gift.

He reacted on instinct. He formed a shell around the metal ball and layered many barriers of mana over it. He then sent it shooting off into the distance. He did not have a good feeling about this object. Whatever it was set his alarm bells off like crazy.

He was just too late. A second after he sent it flying to the trees, it went off like a bomb. A white blinding light was all he saw before the explosion rocked the entire forest.

He set up as many defenses as he could and braced for the impact. But it was all for naught. It was like one of his exploding orbs but many times stronger. It absolutely melted everything within a hundred feet, including himself.

He didn’t know how the man was able to set off an explosion that strong, but honestly that didn’t matter too much. He was too focused on not dying at the moment.

The blast tore through his barriers like paper and his armor only held up marginally better. The only thing he felt was searing pain as his skin blistered from the heat.

His healing skill went into overdrive, healing the damage as it came through. It wasn’t enough though. He could feel the fire overwhelming him. There was nothing he could do to prevent it. [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] was pumping as hard as he could and even Drasil was feeding him as much of his essence as he could. His mana was running out fast from the amount of damage he was taking at once.

Was this how it was going to end?

He had been confident of dealing with whatever the guy threw at him but didn’t expect something like this. How did someone like him have something so powerful on hand?

He pushed himself as hard as he could. He used every single thing in his arsenal to hold off even if it was just for a second longer. He wasn’t going to allow himself to be killed so easily. Unlike his first death, he wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

Unfortunately, no matter how strong his will was or how much mana he had, it wasn’t enough in the end. His arms and legs were completely turned to ash until only his torso was still left.

[Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal lvl 18 -> lvl 19]

Haha! I don’t think that’s going to help that much, he thought bitterly to himself.

That was the last thought he had before the dark void consumed him.

***

Alice POV

She messed up. She really messed up.

She quietly floated above the destruction, her emotions in a turmoil of regret and anger. How had she been so stupid? So prideful?

What was Lily going to say? Her friend's ashy remains laid in front of her and it was partly her fault. She had been the one who pointed those men in Julius’s direction. She had been the one who let them battle it out. There wasn’t even a body left to retrieve.

She had been hoping that a life-and-death battle would allow Julius to figure out his Life Concept. Some people had different ways to connect to life and in Julius’s case, she realized that he would most likely have a better sense of life by experiencing death. Or more specifically, by taking a life.

Most people didn’t understand how intertwined life and death were. The two Concepts were different sides of the same coin. And so she thought that having him experience death, would allow him insights on a Life Concept.

However, it went all wrong. How in the hell did that Tier 3 have such a destructive item? Who gave such a valuable item to him and why? She had seen similar items before. It was a device that sucked the essence from someone and in return created a suicide blast that destroyed everything in its reach. However, they were extremely difficult to make and very expensive as well. Only a Tier 5 and above crafter were able to make similar items.

There wasn’t anything she could do to help Julius. She couldn’t stop the blast in time and she couldn’t pull him out in time with her spatial skills. His Will Concept was too strong for her to overpower in such little time. Especially when he was actively using it to survive.

It was her fault for being so arrogant and carefree. She had been supremely confident in Julius’s ability to defeat the two men and she hadn’t been prepared for any surprises. She kept her distance and watched. Now look at what happened.

Poor Lily. She knew better than anyone that the girl didn’t make friends easily and those who were she became fiercely protective of. Her talent was both a gift and a curse. Lily was always able to read people’s emotions with ease. She knew who was trying to get closer to her because of her status or had a second agenda and unfortunately, that was most nobles.

How was Alice going to explain this to her? She had promised Lily that she would take care of Julius and what did she do? Not only did she fail at that, but she was the one who helped kill him.

So she stared. She just stared at the missing crater in the earth with regret.