Just after Tom uttered the words 'Temporal stasis' there was a shift in the surrounding and an invisible dome of ten meters wide formed around him.
The moment the wisemonkies king stepped into Tom's temporal domain, his speed reduced greatly, shocking him as it was the contrary that was supposed to happen.
He had just activated his Astralum, so his speed was supposed to increase, but what was that ? His speed just dropped.
'As I thought, I can now use my time astralum on those stronger than me' thought Tom as he looked the wisemonkies king being reduced.
These last several weeks he hadn't just been training to master healing touch and force shaper, he also continued to practice his time astralum boosting his mastery over his astralum.
Before he couldn't stop the time of someone stronger than him -he had tried it on Midas-, but now he could do it, although doing so made a huge dent on his etherium reserve; even now, he could feel his etherium burning at a fast pace.
The second breakthrough he made in his mastery over his Time astralum was that now he could maintain temporal stasis for as long as his reserve of etherium permitted him to do so.
Before, when he activated temporal stasis he could only maintain it activated for a small period before deactivating it even if his reserve were full, but that was not the case anymore, now he could maintain temporal stasis till his reserve were depleted.
'However, it seems that I can't totally stop the time of someone a whole level higher than me, while even slowing them down exhausts my etherium tank rapidly,' thought Tom as he evaded the slowed fist of the king.
After he dodged, Tom bent down, then sent a powerful punch towards the king ribs.
BAM
As Tom's fist connected with the king, the latter was sent stumbling a few meters back, then he was attacked by shadows spikes that emerged from his shadows.
The king dodged the spikes, however he was still grazed by some of them, leaving a deep gash on his fur.
'His body is too sturdy' thought Tom as he glanced at the wound left by the shadows spikes, then at his fist.
Since he was caught off guard and didn't dodge properly, the king was supposed to be pierced by those spikes, but he was only wounded.
Meanwhile, at the location of Tom's previous punch, there wasn't even a bruise.
The shocking thing about all of this was the fact that it was Tom that was hurt after he punched the king.
'Then let's take this to the next level' thought Tom as he materialized two gauntlets made of etherium around his arms.
***
Cough Cough
"Are you alright ?" Asked Milrain to the wisemonkey next to him that was coughing up blood.
This wisemonkey was none other than the third ranked - Mahout.
"You need to hold on, we can't let him take us down before the king is killed" whispered Milrain to Mahout.
The one he was referring to was the commandant of the royal guards.
Just after Milrain had learned to defeat the chief of the guard stationed at the gates of the village, the commandant of the royal guards came.
Since the moment they made the plan with Tom and their master Milrain and mahout already knew that their true target weed the commandant, they needed to keep him from going back to the side of the king, so, the moment he appeared mahout came to help Milrain, but even with the two of them, they were not his match.
Although he was weaker than their master, the commandant was still much stronger than Milrain and Mahout, nevertheless, they had to hold on since letting him return to the side of the king was the last thing they wanted.
'Good, he is alive' sighed Miran as he leaned the chief of guards charges to protect the village.
Miran face got somber as he looked around him and observed the bodies of the wisemonkies that had been slaughtered.
'He is alive, but all the others-'
Just when he was thinking that all the others wisemonkies had been killed, he saw one of the supposed "corpses" twitch, then the same thing happened to the others' corpse.
'Huh? They are all alive ?' Thought Miran, surprised.
'If they are alive, then...', he glanced at Milrain to and Mahout and asked:
"You have clearly not gone mad since you aren't really killing the tribesmen as you make it seem, but merely knocking them down, so, What are you playing at ? Why all this act ?"
"...."
"...."
Milrain and Mahout remained silent and didn't answer him.
They had understood that their cover had been blown the moment Miran discovered that they were acting, but they weren't worried that he would leave and go to the side of the king for the simple reason that he may understand that they were acting, but he didn't know what their motives for acting was.
BOOM
Milrain and mahout were right about the fact that Miran hadn't a clue about their real motives were, so, they could hold him here, but, as though fate was mocking them, an explosion sound came from far behind Miran and when three of them glanced at the direction of the explosion, they saw a cloud of dust raising in the air.
The moment Miran saw the location this cloud of dust was coming from, everything clicked in his mind, from the reason why the members of the special unit were acting to the reason why Midas wasn't here despite everything that's going on.
'They are attacking the king!'
Immediately after he had this thought, Miran turned around and started running towards the king tent.
"Come back here!" Shouted both Milrain and mahout as they started chasing Miran.
Seeing their agitation the moment he started running back to the king tent, Miran became even more sure of his guess.
'I need to return, fast!'
***
As both Miran and the two of Midas students were running in their direction, Tom could be seen laying on in a sort of crater with his right arm bent in an awkward position and wounds all over his body
He winced and got up while cursing.
'This bastard is really a pain in the ass to deal with.