While Victor explored more dead trees to find another secret entrance, he came across Tom, a farmer from the village, dragging along a child with him. The child's face had been hidden under a cloth back, and his or her feet and legs were tied.
Tom entered one for the dead black trees and vanished inside with the child.
Victor gulped as he might have finally come across the cause of the issues, and it was definitely related to the secret underground base of the village chief. Following them from a distance, Victor came across a larger underground room; lit with torches on all sides, and 12 people inside. The village chief was at the centre, with two stone blocks on either side, as large as a normal person.
On one of them was a small child, while on the other was an aged man who seemed to be dying of old age with every second.
The village chief was constantly mumbling incomprehensible words, while throwing around seemingly random items; sometimes power sometimes some sort of liquid, while other times it was just various types of rocks and pebbles.
Suddenly, as the village chief raised both his hands…
…
At this moment, Kai encountered the very same thing.
The village chief raised his hands into the air, and the Mana in the surroundings was almost immediately sucked towards a different dying old man to the one that Victor had seen. The only difference was, that there was nobody else in the room other than the tied-up child, the village chief, and the dying old man this time around.
The old man absorbed all the mana and his body swelled up like a balloon, before melting away into bright green goo.
Kai immediately recognised this goo and noticed that it was slowly inching towards the little girls tied to the other stone platform, and took action. He used the Five Elephant Palm Technique and threw his dagger at astonishing speeds towards the village chief.
He was the cause of everything and the reason behind all of the deaths.
Kai grinned as the flew through the air, but he did not get complacent. Instead, he continued running towards the village chief, almost completely ignoring the glowing green goo.
Seeing that it was glowing, unlike the ones he had killed, likely meant that it was in a different state than the others; either invincible to attacks or worse, able to invade anything it touched.
Therefore, Kai avoided it for the time being and went to finish off the village chief.
*Ding*
His dagger, which had been flying at a rather ridiculous speed hit something ridiculously hard and immovable, causing it to be deflected to the right. However, this caused the invisible barrier around the village chief to the exposed, and Kai went in for the kill.
Aaron had taught him that Rank 1 and above Magi generally had a passive defensive barrier that was impossible to break using any Rank 0 spells or normal attacks. This was because almost all Magi would be able to select a passive spell for their respective element. And considering that this passive spell would grow in power along with the rank of the Mage, a defensive spell would be the most natural option to protect the life of the mage in question.
However, everything had weaknesses. He could try and spend a few days analysing the shield, doing all sorts of experiments with it to find its weakness. But that was just stupid.
Next, he could try and overwhelm the shield by using Magic arrays… but he did not know of any so that too was out the window.
Lastly, Kai could simply use brute force to break through the shield.
According to what Aaron said, his Five Elephant Palm contained 1/4th the power of a Rank 1 spell, and considering that he had been practising both the technique and his body, it should have become at least 1/3rd the power of a Rank 1 spell since Aaron had last tested it 1 year before he left for the Bluestone Sect.
Kai pulled back his fist and activated it.
The village chief noticed this but scoffed. He was already irritated by a brat appearing in his underground lair, the second one this month to sneak in. Plus, the strain from performing the possession ritual was incredibly powerful and he had to put most of his concentration onto it.
Without it, his work would be ruined and one of his bodies would be permanently! Almost half a decade's worth of his research would go down the drain with just this one mistake. The village head cursed at his own stupidity and vowed to himself to improve the security measures of his underground laboratory.
While he was occupied with such thoughts, and the process of completing his work, the sound of an elephant roaring could be heard through the barrier, as Kai's palm landed onto the barrier, making it ripple like water!
One had to know, something like this was not possible unless the opponent was a Rank 1 Mage, but he clearly wasn't, so something was definitely wrong here!
However, before the village chief could come up with a solution to his predicament of not being able to move or diverge his attention from the procedure, another Elephant's roar was heard along with a resounded crash.
Yet, the barrier held firm.
Like a victorious trumpet, another Elephant's shriek was heard as the third palm attack landed on the shield made of green elements; likely of Life Mana. This time however the shield cracked and broke under Kai's powerful attack.
Immediately afterwards, Kai stabbed the man through his neck using the dagger, ensuring that he pulled out the dagger and stabbed a few more times on the heart, the stomach, and the throat a few more times as well.
Unlike the goo creatures in human skin like Victoria, this was an actual human, and Kai would not be able to easily cut through bone.