Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 107. Overwhelming.

Be it Raphael and Mikaela or Elder Sophie and the two black-brown-haired men, they were all stunned by Laien’s arrogant statement. Yes, none of them looked down on Laien and they all believed he was capable of exerting strength far beyond his cultivation level. Elder Sophie and her two guards, in particular, knew that Laien was rumored to have frozen a mid-sized village with his magic, making him comparable to spiritual master in this regard, and they had learned that he had effortlessly defeated Luca… but those things weren’t close enough to make them consider he was strong enough to contend with a martial master of the fourth rank, much less kill him!

“Aren’t you an overconfident one, kiddo,” one of the two black-brown-haired men said with an amused laugh. He could tell that Laien was a dual practitioner of the eighth rank, so he could only laugh at the brash claims of Laien’s about dealing with their group alone. Maybe he wouldn’t be all that confident to fight against a genius who had already stepped into the Realm of Heroes, but against a kid who was still green behind his ears? No matter how talented a person was, jumping six realms to kill an enemy was the stuff of the legends and fairy tales; no one right in their mind would believe it.

“If you think so, why don’t we just try?” Laien asked with a laugh and took one step forward, daring the man to attack him if he had the confidence to do so.

“What game are you trying to play?” Elder Sophie asked with a frown, failing to understand Laien’s intentions.

“Just ignore him.” The black-brown-haired man smirked. “What can a pampered young master know? I bet he sparred against some martial masters who held back and allowed him to win in the past and that’s why he’s so stupidly confident. Truly naïve,” he added contemptuously, seeing Laien as nothing but a delusional, pampered young master who never faced any obstacles in his life.

“You guys couldn’t feel it at all, could you?” Laien asked playfully, showing no signs of being frustrated by the words of the black-brown-haired guard.

“Ha?” the black-brown-haired man frowned in annoyance. “What the hell are you speaking about?” he asked in a threatening tone. He had no idea what this kid was thinking; was he trying to make them lose concentration by saying strange things and try to run away? That wasn’t going to happen. Both of them twin brothers were martial masters of the fourth rank; they had been training their whole lives, which amounted to almost two centuries! A twelve-year-old brat who was still in the mortal realm, no matter how talented and no matter what ploys he employed, had no ability to resist in front of them.

“Yup, looks about right,” Laien said with an amused laugh. “I could still understand you two since you are pure martial masters, but even your mistress didn’t notice our auras sweep past you and probe your cultivation bases. And about that, your foundations feel incredibly shaky compared to some martial masters I saw in the past. You probably didn’t improve at all in the past decades, huh? I doubt you will ever be able to go beyond the realm you are already at,” he said and laughed again, at the same time quietly wondering just how much more would he need to provoke those two for them to finally lose patience and attack him or reveal some acceptable opening.

“This brat…!” Naturally, the two black-brown-haired martial masters weren’t used at all to being provoked. With their noble background, they had sailed through their lives without any obstacles, then landed an easy and very well-paid job of personal guards of a Grand Elder. If it weren’t for explicit orders from Elder Sophie not to hurt any of those kids without a clear command from her, they would have already stepped in to teach Laien a lesson.

“Enough of this farce,” Elder Sophie said while gnashing her teeth. She wanted to capture those kids in as dignified and painless way as possible, but it looked like those spoiled brats didn’t understand the position they were in. Especially this Laien kid… as long as she made sure he was dealt with, the other ones would stop resisting and follow her orders, having realized what awaits them if they don’t. “Restrain this kid, we can’t waste any more time here,” she ordered impatiently and angrily.

This casual attitude of Laien, Yin, and Arslan… she couldn’t understand it at all and to be honest, it was giving her creeps. She was having an incredibly bad feeling, so she wanted to hurry up and get out of here before some experts could come and turn the situation upside down.

“Finally,” the black-brown-haired man who was standing closer to Laien said with a laugh. “I really couldn’t bear to listen to this kid yapping his mouth off any longer,” he added, then produced a thick steel rope from his interspatial ring and placed it in his left hand. He smirked and started walking forwards at a leisure pace, feeling no sense of danger or urgency at all.

“We will just watch from the back, okay?” Yin asked with a smile and retreated by three steps, gesturing Raphael with a light move of one of his twin swords to do the same.

“Sure,” Laien agreed with a laugh and took a step forward, though he didn’t break his casual stance at all, looking like he wasn’t prepared to do battle in the slightest. Yet, an experienced warrior who had gone through many life-or-death battles would have been able to instinctually sense the danger despite no killing intent being present… alas, the twin brothers had never actually experienced true battle. In terms of combat experience, they were far below the likes of Laien and Yin; they were like children who had grown up while being sheltered from all dangers and challenges by their parents.

“Wow, they are being way too careless,” Raphael thought to himself after retreating further to the back like Laien and Yin wanted him to. With that man approaching without a weapon in hand and with rope in the other, he would have been able to kill him with one attack. He needed to admit that he hadn’t thought about taking a casual, arrogant approach in order to make those three lower their guard. He could guess that Elder Sophie was quite confused too, likely worrying if someone new wasn’t about to show up, all due to the unnaturally calm attitude of Laien, Yin, and Arslan’s.

“Be a good kid and put this stick down,” the black-brown haired man said with a laugh and while watching Laien for any random movements, just in case, passed by the blade of his spear. He laughed at himself for thinking that Laien might try to attack him; no matter how he looked at it, the kid had been bluffing and now that it failed, he was frozen with fear, unable to move an inch. “Let’s get you tied up real nice,” he added wryly and reached out with his right hand, intending to grab Laien by the shoulder in order to turn him around and start tying him up.

“I kind of wish he resisted at least a little… I wish I could have punched that conceited face at least once,” he thought to himself as he was about to grab Laien. However, to his complete shock, before he could clench his hand Laien suddenly bent his knees and slipped out from his grasp. Then, at a speed that shouldn’t have been possible for a mere marital practitioner of the eighth rank, he saw Laien step forward and thrust out with his hand. Yet, despite this ridiculous speed he was seeing and despite being unable to react properly in time, he still didn’t think he was in trouble.

A dual practitioner of the eighth rank was impressive and all, but it couldn’t be compared to a martial master of the fourth rank. He fully expected Laien to break his fingers and maybe even his wrist by attacking him in such a reckless manner, without even using his weapon, but it was at the last split-second before Laien’s hand touched his upper stomach that he felt a freezing-cold chill run through his whole body. His dulled instinct finally warned him that he was in a life-threatening danger, but it was far too late for him to even rouse his Qi to form a defensive layer on top of his skin.

Truth to be told, however, the moment he approached Laien so carefreely, the man had sealed his fate. Even if he did somehow react in time, his insufficiently deep cultivation base would have dragged him down. A martial master of the fourth rank who at best was comparable to a strong martial master of the second rank? Laien had killed many such people!

With a unique dull sound, Laien’s water-covered palm pierced through the black-brown-haired man’s upper stomach, sending pieces of bones, flesh, and bits of blood flying out from his back. A wound like that would have caused a normal person to collapse from shock instantly… but no matter how weak, a martial master of the fourth rank wouldn’t fall down so easily and quickly.

The extremely shocked black-brown-haired man grit his teeth as blood began raising up his throat. This hand-thrust of Laien’s hit a very dangerous region, but a normal blow wouldn’t be able to shatter his Qi Origin so easily despite being aimed directly at it. He would take his revenge and smash this kid into a pile of mincemeat, then find a water or light-element spiritual master to heal his wounds before it was too late… “!!!” Or so were his intentions when a wave of frightening cold energy burst forth from the arm that was piercing his stomach, instantly shattering his Qi Origin. Without any additional protection, it took merely half a second for his whole torso to freeze over all the way up to his neck. Before he could come to terms with it, his mind went blank and he died.

“Idiot,” Laien said with a smirk and a snort, then yanked his hand out of the man’s stomach, sending shards of ice falling all over the floor, which were soon followed by the man’s falling body. Much less a very weak martial master of the fourth rank, even an elite martial master of the fourth rank would have risked death if he approached him in a manner as stupid as this one. Elder Sophie and those two guards of hers… they truly were like children poking a sleeping bear without understanding the potential and very likely consequences of what they were doing.

“Now that this one is dead,” Laien mused in his thoughts. He had been paying attention to the movements of the other guard and of Elder Sophie from the very beginning and well, should he say that they were incredibly predictable?

“Aaaaah!” the second of the twin guards roared in his rage, rousing his Qi to its utmost. He equipped himself with a sword and attacked without thinking, his mind swallowed up by the scene of his brother being killed by a random kid. He didn’t care about the plan anymore; his brother had been killed! He wouldn’t rest until he got his revenge, else he wouldn’t be able to face his brother in the afterlife! Using all his strength, he slashed at the damnable kid from above, intending to cut him in half all at once to give vent to the boundless anger that he was feeling.

As for Laien, he merely smirked in face of such an attack. “Full of openings,” he thought contemptuously and moved smoothly, without making any strained movements at all. He stepped to the side and twisted his body, dodging the blow and thrusting out with his spear at the same time.

The second of the brothers was filled with disbelief as his full-strength blow hit nothing but air, merely shattering a small portion of the floor. He saw Laien’s counterattack incoming and wanted to react, to dodge, but he had attacked too aggressively, he had put too much blunt strength into his slash. As a result, the spear pierced his stomach and the cold energy surrounding it began instantly eating away at his internal organs. “If it’s going to be like that, then I’m going to take you to the grave with me!” he roared in his mind and grabbed the shaft of the spear with his left hand. At the same time, he directed his Qi to suppress the freezing of his innards and took a swing with his right hand.

Alas, he wasn’t even given an opportunity to try and attack as he found out that his attempts to suppress the cold energy with Qi were akin to trying to stop a flood by patching up a gaping hole with towels and pieces of cloth; such measures were utterly ineffective. “How can there be this much of a difference…?!” he cursed inwardly, though before he could do much of anything else his Qi Origin was shattered by the spreading energy, what in turn caused what little resistance he was able to offer to vanish, allowing the frost to spread through his entire body in but an instant.

“Even weaker than I thought,” Laien commented after pulling out his spear from the second man’s body, which joined the corpse of his sibling and fell lifelessly onto the floor. “Being careless is one thing, but I think they were weaker than most of the martial masters of the second rank we’ve encountered recently,” he mused silently and shook his head a little. Be it in terms of Qi purity, battle experience, fighting techniques or judgment ability, those two were simply too inferior. Was this what a peaceful life with no challenges did to a practitioner? If so, then he never wanted to end up like those two pitiful men who only comprehended the difference in strength between themselves and their opponent the moment they were dying.

“Amazing…” Mikaela said quietly, his voice resounding surprisingly clearly in the silence which had befallen the interior of the meeting room. The way in which Laien used both water and ice to dispose of those two martial masters, it truly gave him chills. He had seen Raphael use powerful attacks before and he knew that Raphael’s true strength was far beyond what his friend displayed to the public eye, but ultimately, Raphael was a light-element practitioner while he himself was a water-element practitioner. Thus, he couldn’t help but feel greatly excited having seen Laien’s spectacular and overwhelming display of power while using water-element as a basis.

“He’s actually this strong?” Raphael thought quietly, all the while unconsciously tightening the grasp on his black-gold spear. An untrained eye might not be able to recognize Laien’s strength just from those two exchanges, but he had clearly sensed the truly ridiculous mixture of powerful insights each of Laien’s strikes contained. From that alone, he could tell that Laien’s basic skillset was a class above his own… and he had a feeling that there was an even bigger difference between the two of them as far as true combat experience was concerned. For him, it was the first time he felt he couldn’t match up to someone his age in terms of strength and to be honest, it was quite vexing.

“You… no… how?!” A few breaths worth of time later, Elder Sophie started coming back to her senses. She began retreating step by step in a half-conscious manner, too astonished and too terrified of this… this monstrosity in form of a boy which stood before her! Nightmare, this needed to be a nightmare! She had seen it with her own two eyes, but she still couldn’t believe that a mere child had killed her two elite guards so effortlessly, in one blow each…! This was so out of her scope of comprehension that she lost all ability to think whatsoever and simply mumbled to herself, refusing to accept the reality that was unfolding before her.

“How you ask, didn’t you see it clearly enough?” Laien asked with a contemptuous laugh and started walking towards the slowly retreating Elder Sophie, causing the expression of fear on her face to deepen even further. He had been ready to use his magic to suppress Elder Sophie while he was dealing with her guards, but the woman proved to be just as much of a coward as he thought her to be. She hadn’t even attempted to attack him and had stared at them like a complete idiot as her guards were being killed off. “You attempt to take us hostage but you aren’t even prepared to stake your own life to capture us, your resolve isn’t nearly high enough,” he added and shook his head, looking at Elder Sophie with disdain.

“No…! Don’t come closer!” Elder Sophie began panicking, but just as she tried to turn around to run away, she tripped on the edge of her own robe and fell down on her butt. She gasped for air and looked at Laien, no longer from above, but this time from below. Once again, a chill passed through her body. Much like her two now-dead guards, she had never truly experienced life-or-death battles personally, much less taken part in them. Thus, the silently-burning killing intent within Laien’s eyes caused a fear like no other to surge forth within her heart and soul.

“Go away!” she yelled, closing her eyes and turning her face away as she released all the spiritual energy she could. She was in no state of mind to use any spells, but using Guardian Magic was simple enough for any spiritual master, even if they were driven into a half-insane state. Her body was instantly surrounded by a thick layer of burning flames, even more of which in turn were sent towards Laien as she waved her hand in a panic-stricken manner.

The sudden retaliation from Elder Sophie caused Raphael and Mikaela to stiffen in their nervousness. Although the power of the Guardian Spell wasn’t all that much, Laien was a mere three or four steps away from Elder Sophie; he had little to no time to react! However, the two of them were soon surprised yet another time. Their eyes went wide as the surging flames of Elder Sophie were extinguished by a wave of mist-like freezing air. The sight was quite amazing to behold as the ice energy pushed into and devoured the flame energy, causing it to retreat and then revert all the way to Elder Sophie’s body.

Subsequently, to Elder Sophie’s fright, the cold mist began overwhelming her inner defenses and invading the interior of her body, freezing her skin and muscles. “Nooo!” Frightened to death, she let out an incredibly loud yell before fainting from fear and pain. Her unconscious body collapsed down, the skin on her arms cracking as it had been mostly turned into ice. Given that she was a pure spiritual master and her martial cultivation was non-existent, those wounds were very close to being lethal and if unattended to for an extended period of time, they would certainly turn out to be so.

“Scary…” Raphael swallowed nervously. There had been times he killed people in his life, but the way Laien took down Elder Sophie, leaving her half-dead… it gave him chills. However, for some reason, he had a feeling those chills weren’t just of fear, but also, if not mainly, of excitement. He had thought himself to be one of the best and strongest young practitioners on the continent, but now it looked like he was nothing but a caged tiger while the one in front of him was a freely soaring dragon. Thus, the only choice he could possibly make was to break this cage into little pieces!

In contrast to Raphael’s reaction… or perhaps similar to it, Mikaela grew even more excited than he was a few seconds ago. “Wow, your magic is so strong! That’s crazy!” he exclaimed in excitement and seeing that the danger was dealt with, passed by Raphael and Yin and ran up to Laien. “Say, will you teach me some of that? How to use ice and how to make your magic so strong? Please!” he asked right after stopping, all the while fidgeting impatiently and looking at Laien with sparkly eyes.

“This brat,” Raphael said with a helpless laugh. He had offered to train with Mikaela and help him comprehend some of the Secret Arts, but Mika wasn’t all that excited about it and quickly lost motivation to keep going. It was true that their elemental affinities weren’t the best match to use as a reference, but to think he would be enamored with another water-element practitioner to this degree. Was this jealousy that he was feeling right now towards Laien? This day he truly was being made to remember many emotions he hadn’t experienced in quite some years now.

“Fine, fine,” Laien replied to Mikaela and laughed helplessly, then tousled the boy’s silver hair. How could he possibly refuse after being asked in such an energetic and cute manner? There would be no harm if he spent some time in the afternoons teaching Mikaela some things and since he was already getting along well with him and Raphael, he had no reason to refuse.

“All right!” Mikaela said cheerfully and clenched his fists with a bright smile on his face. The scenes of Laien killing those two men and using his magic were still very fresh in his mind, so he couldn’t help getting all the more excited to have Laien teach him. He had tried learning from Raphael before, but as far as cultivation went, the two of them just weren’t all that good of a match. On the other hand, he had a feeling that if he followed the same path as Laien, then he could become very strong!

Shaking his head with a smile, Raphael laughed weakly as he looked at how excited Mikaela was acting. He glanced at Yin and Arslan, then asked indirectly, “You guys knew he was this strong. That’s why you weren’t nervous at all.”

“Yeah.” Yin nodded his head. “There is a reason why we were allowed to wander alone with Arslan, even if it’s technically a safe place,” he pointed out with a playful smile.

“’We’ you say, don’t tell me…” Although it was just a hunch, Raphael couldn’t resist asking a certain question and thus keeping the usual pattern going unbroken into the future. “Are you just as strong as he is?” he asked, his pride shaking a little. He could accept seeing one dragon and feeling inferior to it, but for there to be two of them? That would be a little hard to take.

“At this moment, I’m weaker,” Yin replied lightheartedly, allowing Raphael to let out an inward sigh of relief. Yet, he added right afterwards, causing Raphael to stiffen up, “But once I’m in my perfect state in a few days, I will be quite a bit stronger than him.”

Raphael revealed a somewhat silly look on his face as he fought with himself to accept what Yin told him as truth. He didn’t think Yin would be lying to him, but this was too much. After those two would be gone… no, even before that, he would need to double his efforts in training and ask Elder Samuel for permission to leave the Ruishi Federation in order to experience some of the world’s dangers and challenges. Being the strongest youth in his own country? It was today that he realized it was nothing else than being a caged tiger! He was unwilling to have his fangs and claws dulled and more importantly, he was unwilling to fall behind others his age!

“Oh, they are coming,” Laien pointed out first as the one closest to the door. “Highest time, sheesh,” he added jokingly and chuckled a little. He waved his hand and pulled the door open with a little bit of water, preferring the late guests not to shatter them in their hurry to get inside.

Two or three seconds later, a few people stopped abruptly just in front of the now open door, amongst whom was Elder Samuel himself. Having been alarmed by the surges of energy spreading from this place he instantly came to expect the worst and rushed over with his two personal guards, taking a few more experts along the way. He worried for his youngest son’s safety, for Arslan’s safety… and for the safety of those three older boys, so he ran as fast as he could. Then, when he heard Elder Sophie’s harrowing cry, he grew confused… but now that he and his men were staring at the inside of the meeting room, he had no words left to speak.

The five youths he had been worried about were fine and smiling, Elder Sophie’s personal guards were dead while she herself was on the brink of death. He had known that those kids in here were all special and was aware that those three oldest of them were very strong, but just what in the world was this incomprehensible and ridiculous scene unfolding before his eyes?