By the time he left the Red Ravens building, Shui seemed to have become as cold as ice. He should be furious or concerned, but his face was blank and his heart showed no sign of instability. As if nothing had happened, Shui left the area.
However, at some point, his figure disappeared.
"Huh? Where the hell did he go?"
The three men following him were shocked by his sudden absence. They were certain that they had their eyes on him, but suddenly he faded out of their vision.
"Did anyone see where he went?" one of the men asked.
"No, I was watching him from the butcher shop but he was just gone somehow." another responded.
The group of men gathered there, scratching their heads and wondering how they would explain their failure. Above them, on the roof of a building that no one thought to look at, Shui watched the men. Even without being able to fully control his aura, concealing it with 'Hide' was enough to escape these guys.
"Now then, I'll end this and go home for dinner."
Shui took out five high quality spirit gems and held them together in his right hand. The gems were too big to be kept within his hand, but martial intent could keep them in place. Shui then pointed his right index finger at the Red Ravens building, with his thumb raised as if it was pulling back the bucket of a catapult.
'Liquify. Condense. Amplify. Focus.'
In response to the symbols drawn in his mind, the gems melted, were compressed, went from light blue to dark blue, and then all of it gathered to the tip of his finger. There was enough nature energy to make even him feel like it could slightly increase in his cultivation and was far more than he could release at one time. Anyone else at his level wouldn't be able to control this much nature energy at once, nor would they try to out of fear of mental collapse. However, Shui was confident that it was under his complete control.
With his eyes open and locked on to the red building, he saw past the stone blocks and found his target.
"Bang."
Suddenly, a beam of blue light shot through the Red Ravens building, piercing through Ulus' skull and then far into the horizon. Ulus's head rapidly became bloated and leaked blue pus before exploding and splashing brain matter all over the room. It normally wouldn't be this easy to kill someone at the peak of Earth Realm, but in addition to him being unprepared for such a large concentration of nature energy, what happened after the beam of light shot through the building would have taken care of him either way.
While everyone had their thoughts on the beam of light, they didn't notice that the people inside the building were quickly degrading from human. Green skin, multiple limbs, warts the size of heads and all sorts of aberrations appeared, which made the place look worse than hell. If this sight was in public view, it wouldn't be odd if several fainted and vomited.
"Auguhguh!"
"Ahh!"
"Kiii!"
One property of nature energy that was found after several centuries of research, was that it gathered to concentrated areas. In other words, when a place has a high concentration of nature energy, it will attract more nature energy in the area. This was easy to see using cultivators as very strong cultivators tended to be surrounded by nature energy and could regenerate their energy supply easier.
Even though cultivators could absorb nature energy, if a large volume of it hit them when they were too weak or unprepared, a disaster happens.
"Damn it, I wasted a lot of resources for this."
Shui had secretly scattered high quality spirit gems around the building the night before and hid them with concealment arrays. Once he fired that beam of light, all of that nature energy gathered into the building and forced everyone in there to undergo forced mutation. Those in the Earth Realm might be able to keep their lives, but once they started mutating they would continually emit nature energy in concentrations that would be bad for the mortal public. And naturally such a menace had to be taken care of.
Shortly after the mutation began, and the spectators started realising what was happening inside the building, the mayor appeared in the sky.
"Look! It's the mayor!"
"We're safe!"
The mayor looked down at the building with a grave expression. He couldn't even be glad that the terrible thorn in his side was finally gone.
'Who did this?'
Ulus had many enemies, but the mayor couldn't think of one that could cause this disaster. Although he was powerful enough to kill Ulus with one spell, he couldn't cause mass forced mutation with his energy because it was no longer pure. Only pure nature energy could cause this mess and it had to be in high volumes as well. The mayor looked around for the source but the spirit gems around the building were already emptied, turning them into dull rocks, and the concealment arrays had dissipated.
The mayor wanted more time to examine the scene, but one mutated monster made it out of the building and was causing panic.
"Auuu...."
"Ahh!Ahh!"
Everyone ran away from the waddling greenish-blue, giant beast that was covered in black polka dots. The abomination with eyes of different sizes towered at ten feet and inspired both fear and disgust. It was a sight that would definitely cause nightmares but luckily the beast was struck down before it could cause any physical harm.
"Stand back."
The mayor's clear voice reached into the ears of the spectators and they hastily obeyed it. As someone in the Sky Realm, there was no need for him to face these mutated monsters with fear in his heart. With a wave of his head, spikes poked in and out of the building, piercing through the monsters including the one at the entrance. Then, once he clenched his fist, the building was continually compressed until it was the size of a normal carriage.
"Yay!!!"
The citizens cheer as they saw the mayor easily solve the problem reached Shui even as he got closer to home, leaving behind an additional three bodies in an alleyway.
'That should do it.'
Everything went exactly as he planned it so Shui hoped he could have a period of peace and quiet. By the time he reached home, the moon was bright in the sky and he could smell dinner without stepping on the premises. Lily was the first to greet him.
"Master, welcome home."
"Mhmm, thanks."
During dinner, Lilia brought up the incident that happened.
"The entire building too, I really don't know how something like that happened in the town." Lilia said while shaking her head.
Shui also nodded his head and agreed with her, but she and Matthew were the only two who didn't glance suspiciously at Shui. The moment she told them where the building was, all of them thought that Shui was behind it but they didn't try to press for answers while Lilia was at the table.
After dinner was over and Shui was drinking Lily's homemade fruit juice at the table, Lily took a seat beside him. He thought she would start the conversation, but instead of talking she only laid her elbows on the table and stared at Shui's face with a gentle smile. It was okay at first, but over time the warm gaze that was directed at him slowly burnt a hole through his composure. Once he finished the juice, he put the cup down and looked back at her.
"Do you want something?"
"No, not really."
Lily continued staring at him even as he sighed and kept glancing back at her. She loved how reliable he was, but she also loved when he reacted like this. When it looked he was close to giving up, she made the choice to sit up and ask him a question.
"So, how was your day Master?"
"Oh, uh, I guess you could say I had some fun."
Shui felt much more relaxed as he gave his response. The incident wasn't something he wanted to hide from her, but he had a feeling she wasn't trying to get that answer from him.
"I see. By the way, could you check up on Sia for me? I think she wants to tell you something."
"Sure."
"Thanks."
Shui then stood up and walked to the room that Sia and Lily shared.