Roland took out his Soul Spirit and when he found breathing room after dodging a lightning bolt and a mighty torrent of fire coming at him, he said. "Wait, can't we talk about all this? Why are you trying to kill me? I can double whatever they are paying you to kill me." Roland tried the diplomatic route since fighting isn't his forte in his opinion. It can be a useless endeavor, but the chances of him escaping him with life by fighting are too slim to him risk his life for it.
This offer made everyone pause their attacks and think about it.
They knew Roland was rich enough to do pay them, but suddenly one of the assassins said aloud. "We can just kill and take from him the money, and if those guys from the Blue Light or Kirin Feast know we let him go we will be killed."
The 'assassins' nodded, seeing the light.
"How sad is to be killed by stupid people. They just told me who orchestrated all of this." Roland thought and said. "If those two restaurants want to kill me, it makes no sense. Why kill me, someone that can provide any high-quality ingredient they would need in their life? It's the same as 'killing the golden goose' at their door and being too narrow-minded to see beyond their small world. You're actually just shooting yourselves at the foot, there's no merit in killing me."
A thug coldly laughed, feeling superior at the cornered Roland. "Shut up with the bullshit. It's true you can have maybe a good background to have all those ingredients and money, but if we search through your soul we will be able to raid the place where all your employers work to harvest the ingredients and use those facilities to expand our business. So killing you is beneficial since we will also be able to cut the resources of the others rival restaurants."
Roland's heart went cold perceiving the diplomatic route failed. "Will I have to kill again? No, I don't want to kill. I swore to myself after ridding of that aberration of nature that dares to call itself of woman I wouldn't kill again." He thought while the assassins slowly reached close to him to completely corner him.
Roland knew he could try to escape from them since he outspeed them, but the people at the roof with their bows won't let him use his high speed to flee. He instinctively knew that with the pressure coming from the roof increasing always when he was near to getting out of the circle of people, in this way, sealing Roland's movements.
Roland's Qi Energy surrounded him as it reformed his upper body, principally his organs. With each second passing in this situation the Qi increased and became quicker in reforming him.
It seems beside the fear of being killed and the adrenaline while avoiding the attacks, the anger and hatred rising within himself at this situation of him being unjustly ambushed also served as food to his Qi. "I'm sorry, Mother and Grandmother I never met, Grandpa and… Father. But I can't take this anymore without retaliating." He thought eyeing all his enemies.
"I've tried, I did my best to this not devolve in bloodshed and you still won't let me go," Roland shouted, his anger flooding outside of him.
"I just wanted to live a life without violence, what did I do of wrong to all of you? Nothing!" His Qi exploded, although it was transparent everyone on the street could feel threatened by its mere presence.
It was a hot and savage energy, ready to kill all of them and eat their flesh for its own amusement. "If you think my Father created me to be a man that doesn't return good with good, evil with evil and killing intent with killing intent. You're all wrong. I will kill every single of you even if I die in the process!" Roland's Qi reached his brain and corrupted it, making him go mad.
His Soul Spirit being connected to him, felt Roland's mad emotions and the drop of blood inside of it throbbed.
At the dumbfounded eyes of Roland's enemies, the Soul Spirit flew above his head and began to shine on a red light like a mini-sun with countless drops of water separated from it.
In the moment Roland roared like a crazy beast, all the drops of water shot against all his enemies, even the ones on the roof with incredible speed and power.
This broke the deadlock Roland was with the thugs surrounding him having to use their techniques to defend themselves and he didn't lose this opportunity, advancing at the thug that talked back to him.
"You are the first one." Roland used his strong legs to kick the thug's stomach.
The thug was already having a hard time protecting himself against the powerful drops of water that penetrated his skin and with Roland suddenly advancing against him, his situation couldn't be more hopeless than that.
Roland's legs were already strong enough to knock the thug out, but because his Qi was in a rampage, it was reinforcing him beyond the limit with explosive force. Causing his leg to pierce the thug's body and explode his intestine.
The street was deathly quiet after the thug died screaming in immense pain, Roland retired his leg stained with blood and intestine parts from the dead body. To the rest of the masked people, Roland seemed a grim reaper ready to harvest their souls with how he didn't even frown when his leg became full of blood.
"A-Attack him all at once! It's the only way to we survive." One of the masked women from Blue Light said trembling.
At the end of the woman's voice, azure lightning and fire went towards Roland in different forms and from all directions possible. There was even a lightning that coalesced into an enormous sword and a fireball bigger than Roland coming from the people at the seventh layer of Essence Reformation.
Roland growled, "protect me," and the Soul Spirit began to grow, madly absorbing all the Essence around it until it got big enough to envelop Roland's whole body.
Descending on Roland, the Soul Spirit covered itself on blue Vital Energy tinged by red and endured all attacks against Roland, only slightly deforming when the lightning sword hit it. But it protected Roland well enough to it despite being made of water didn't let the lightning's electric current flow affect its master.
Roland madness and hatred only grew as the Qi Energy flowed through him, gradually reforming his arms and reaching close to his heart.
Right now Timeless Emperor Refinement was 68% done on his body.
When the masked people saw their attacks failed because of just a ball of water, their astoundment was palpable with their mouths behind the masks hanging open.
"Pierce." The Soul Spirit's front end expanded until it was looking like a sharp spear and before anyone could react, it extended itself rapidly and penetrated the woman's skull that made everyone attack Roland, killing her right on the spot.
Roland rushed out from the Soul Spirit using his new reformed hands to destroy all the masked people on his way, punching their heads off and using the rest of their bodies as shields as he continued to slaughter everyone while his Soul Spirit also helped in the carnage.
Now thoughts of trying to kill Roland disappeared from the masked people's minds, they just wanted to leave this place and never meet Roland once again on their lives.
But would Roland in his berserker state really let them go?
What followed was a one-sided slaughter with Roland's body reformation never ending.
72%...
80%...
Near the 85% when the Qi entered the area around his heart and Polus, a change occurred.
Roland staggered and from his mouth came pitch black blood that when it reached the street, it corroded the street, making a hole impossible to see its end.
Roland's face was pale when he received a new heart, it was as if he could see his grandpa waving at him from the underworld, and it got even worse when the Qi wrapped around his Polus.
Because of the automatic and natural process of gathering Essence, his body and the Polus at and below the third layer was full of impurities and diseases. To reform his Polus means to get rid of all the impurities and it isn't a process kind to him.
He felt being ripped off from the inside of his body and poisonous black blood couldn't stop of coming from his mouth.
The masked people felt as if God had pitied them and was giving the deserved punishment to Roland, with their hopes rising some were going to leave and others were going to attack Roland in his weakened state when Roland screamed. "Don't dare to move a single muscle," the crazed look in his face and his eyes shaking bordering insanity made the masked people's fear resurface and stay motionless almost pissing themselves at Roland's mere shout.
The final glob of black blood finally got out from Roland's body and his Qi completely reformed his Polus, making the Qi reformation reach 85% with all his upper body with exception of the head reformed.
Roland began to walk to finish his work, however, shouts and marching of soldiers came. "Don't let Mister Roland die, advance! Our boss from Silver Breeze made an official decree to protect him and put him under her wing." Relarid, the fat manager from the first restaurant Roland went, ordered the soldiers.
There were at least two squads of one hundred soldiers each and all of them were wearing equipment reinforced to the fifth layer, and were at least Magus Rank 1.
The masked leader immediately began to flee in fear. "Why must be Silver Breeze? Boss said explicitly to not mess with them, even at the cost of our own lives."
Roland roared, completely insane with the pain of having his Polus reformed and ready to take on the newcomers, not caring for the consequences.
But a white streak of light tore through the sky and entered his mouth with him incapable of reacting to it.
He involuntary eat it and instantly got knocked out, sleeping on the street with the Soul Spirit calming down and resting above his body.
What he ate was a high quality Calming medicine in form of a pill and the ones that sent it into him were a good distance away from the fight, appreciating the night and gloating at the destiny of the masked people.
"It was so funny when that guy had his stomach exploded, a shame we couldn't see his face."
"For me, I liked more when he began to slaughter everyone he shouted to them not to move. Who would move in that situation?"
They were Roland's masters, a fox and a turtle.
Lucy sighed. "I am so happy Roland survived the first tribulation from your stupid technique, Son. Luckily the 'cannon fodder' angered him and activated the tribulation earlier than normal. I was worried at this rate he would suddenly go mad while walking on the street and kill innocents."
"Come on, my technique isn't that bad. If Roland one day master Qi he won't have any other tribulation or go mad with power." August replied. "What worries me is that the people from Forsaken Lands meddled into our disciple's baptism, only them can make poison runes."
"True, that was an undesirable variable in our plans." Lucy nodded and went together with her son to the place where Roland is being taken by the soldiers. "I'm surprised the people from the Silver Breeze restaurant are so strong though. What's the background of their boss to be capable of summoning such army to only save someone from the fifth layer in the Essence Reformation realm?"
"Yeah, it wasn't in our plans to them appear also. We wanted to Roland finish the first tier of Timeless Emperor Refinement today, but like they say 'a plan never survives the first contact with the enemy'."
"Don't be disheartened, we will have another opportunities to do that. Although we need to focus more on my technique now, it is extremely lacking in power. And also we need to think about how will we explain to Roland what happened."
August groaned. "Don't even make me remember that, it will be a pain in the ass to explain why we didn't come with him or why he went berserker."