Raymond heaved a sigh of relief after peering into the vast space inside his pendant. A large heap of colourful leaves was gathered in the centre, surrounded by glistening gold coins, nine metallic battle discs, an exquisite sword, and other random knick knacks.
Finally, after running around for a while, Raymond had managed to take all the leaves into his pendant before anyone else could get their hands on them. His figure slouched as he thought about his losses and walked back to the Sacred Chamber. The World Tree was powerful and could regrow very soon, right? Raymond tried to cheer himself with that thought.
"Hmm?" As soon as he reached the centre, he saw several groups of elves resting against the tree here and there. "Jasmine!" Raymond noticed his maid, weakly lifting her hand and waving at him from where she was resting. He hurried towards her and helped her get up.
"Are you okay?" Raymond asked worriedly. Even though Lyla had assured him that they were fine, Raymond was still anxious about Jasmine, who was relatively weak compared to Lyla.
"I am fine, Master," Jasmine wrapped an arm around his waist for support and steadied herself. "There was this man after Vivi, who wanted to sacrifice her for some ritual," Jasmine spoke animatedly since she was afraid that the man who tried to harm her sister might have already escaped.
"Master, don't let him get away with this."
"Alright, alright. First, let me get you and Vivi inside." Raymond remained rather calm on the outside, but on the inside, he was beyond raging. Not only was the man directly responsible for his great loss, but he even dared to try and sacrifice Vivian.
Raymond picked up Vivian along with Jasmine and brought them inside the Sacred Chamber. Vivian was still not fully awake, her consciousness was flickering in and out. He gently placed her on their makeshift bed. It was at that time, he heard a booming voice.
"I am not a wimp!"
Raymond's ears perked up. It seemed that the man who summoned the pyramid was still inside the forest. He took out a handful of leaves and handed it to Jasmine.
"Jasmine, eat this as much as you want and give the rest to Vivian when she wakes up," Raymond informed her and after making sure both of them were settled nicely, he exited the Sacred Chamber and followed the voice.
"Un…" Jasmine slowly nodded as she watched her master striding out of the room.
"Eh?" However, her eyes soon landed on the floor where deep footprints were left behind by her master in his wake.
~~~
Raymond was going through the forest at a moderate pace, well, moderate according to him. Soon, he arrived at the limits of the Inner Sanctum where a strange scene was unfolding.
Ronan was goading the ghost-like man and the said man was trying his hardest to run away while defending his dignity.
Raymond was amused by Ronan's childish taunts. However, his next words made Raymond's temper rise to the roof.
"WHY ARE YOU PICKING UP THOSE LEAVES? DO YOU THINK THEY BELONG TO YOU OR SOMETHING?"
'The old scammer thinks he is smart, doesn't he?' Raymond shook his head. There was no need to make such claims when he knew perfectly well all the leaves were collected by him. Raymond was going to kill the man who tried to rob him of his wealth anyway.
Raymond decided to give some collateral damage to the old man as a warning to stop messing with him. His feet blurred as he disappeared from his place.
-The Dread-
Raymond unleashed his Aura, enveloping both Ronan and the thief completely. Time stood still as his Aura exploded outwards. All the howling from Ronan and Eldric ceased in an instant; the forest became deathly quiet.
Ronan's gulp was struck in his throat, his face turned red due to the lack of air and the only organ in his body that could barely move was his eyelids. He saw Eldric looking behind him, trepidation written all over his face.
Ronan tried to see with effort, however, all he could see from the corner of his eye was a looming shadow of a man. Ronan tried to move his head but stopped himself just in time. He had an ominous feeling that his head would explode if he turned.
It wasn't hard to guess for Ronan who was standing behind him, but he couldn't understand when the brat got this kind of power. 'What did she teach him?' Ronan couldn't help but blame Celestia in his mind. Raymond was already beyond his capabilities, but now it seemed like Ronan could never gauge his power again.
Raymond felt he had tormented the old man enough and his focus was thus shifted to the auburn-haired, devilish thief, who had a red handprint across his face. Raymond's earlier regret of one-shotting the giant pyramid was washed away by the fact that he could beat down the man responsible for everything.
He quickly reined in his Aura and before the both of his preys could come back to their senses, Raymond's fist was already flying towards Eldric's face. With a sickening crunch, Eldric's nose broke and his teeth cracked into bits. Eldric crashed into a nearby tree and howled in pain, clutching his broken nose.
"Aarghh!"
Even through the dizziness caused by the pain, Eldric managed to quickly get back on his feet and activated his Phantom Shifter and turned intangible before he started running. For all the advantages the Innate Spirit gave him, it didn't allow him to fly off in return. If he wanted to form wings and fly, he had to disable his phantom form.
Eldric was sure that he couldn't outfly the freakish human, the only way he could escape was through land— that too by relying on Phantom Shifter to avoid getting punched. The lack of information on the human was driving him mad, if only he knew what kind of an opponent he was facing, he could somehow come up with a plan to make a safe retreat.
So far, Eldric had not seen the human using any mana and he couldn't imagine what kind of power allowed someone to thrash a Martial Sovereign like him with nothing but bare hands. If the human had used some kind of spells or artefacts, Eldric could guess what was happening, but alas, the human was simply swinging his fists without a care in the world.
Another fist went through his body as Eldric was thinking. He subconsciously ducked even though he knew the fist couldn't really hurt him.
"Fuck!" Raymond cursed as his hand went through Eldric's body without damaging it.
Meanwhile, Eldric smirked at Raymond with his bloodied mouth and tried to slip into the earth below for a quick escape. As he was halfway into the ground with only his upper body remaining above, a dreadful aura surrounded him, rendering him stuck in the middle.
"Ack!" Eldric groaned, even if his body was untouchable, his soul felt like being squeezed under the pressure.
"Where do you think you're going after hurting Vivian—" Raymond sneered as he saw the thief comically stuck in the ground, but soon his eyes widened as he saw countless little wisps of energy surrounding the upper body of his prey.
Eldric was horrified to find the Phantom Shifter visible around his body, trembling to get away from his core as soon as it felt his control over it weakening a bit due to the pressure on his soul. Eldric seethed. The Phantom Shifter was never happy with him for stealing it away from its original host and forcefully binding it to his core.
Was it going to free itself from him?
Eldric's heart hammered against his chest. More than losing the Innate Spirit, the thought of dying at the human's hand plaguing his mind.
If he couldn't use his Innate Spirit, how was he going to save himself?
"Hmm?" Raymond curiously looked at the wispy clouds around Eldric's body which reminded him of the heavenly lightning that obediently snuggled against his chest during the Phoenix Festival.
Instantly, a thought struck him. Raymond concentrated and a silhouette of a crown appeared on his head.
As soon as Eldric saw the crown, his eyes bulged in shock. Before he could digest the fact that there was a Crown of Supremacy right in front of him, several pairs of invisible hands grabbed the Phantom Shifter that was trying to get away from him and yanked it out of his core.
-Crack!
Like a broken twig, a cracking sound was heard from his body as his core split into two by the force with which the Innate Spirit was ripped apart from him. The blood rushed to his head and bled out of his seven orifices. Eldric couldn't even scream as the Phantom Shifter was snatched from him without any rituals or sacrifices.
And the bastard of a spirit went willingly, swaying in the air as if guided by the invisible hands, and entered the human's body.
~~~
Ronan staggered forward as Raymond released him and punched Eldric in the face. He gulped down the lump that was struck in his throat and took in deep breaths to calm down his raging nerves.
'What the hell was that?' Ronan screamed internally. No way someone could exert that much pressure on his mature soul. He decided not to think about it too much as it was harmful to his mental health. Since the brat was already too strong it didn't matter if he gained another ability.
Ronan comforted himself and ran after the duo. He skidded to a halt at a distance from Raymond as he felt that same dreadful aura being unleashed and he did not want to get any closer.
-Crack!
Suddenly, there was a cracking sound from Eldric's body, and some wisps came out of it which rushed into Raymond.
-Click!
And then there was a sound of something clicking together inside Raymond and to his absolute horror, the brat's hand turned transparent, almost like he was using the Phantom Shifter.
"Dear god, why!?" Ronan was numbed by the horror. It was like a monster that had been haunting him in his sleep had suddenly sprouted wings and flew out of his dream. Ronan was too stunned to think.