Trial's Finale (2)

The interior only had a faint resemblance to the image in his memory, but it was enough to inspire nostalgia. As Shui laid his hand on a doorpost, memories of the three lives he had experienced came rushing in. Without anyone to protect he could do whatever he wanted, but it was still lonely. Although it was nice, it wasn't the kind of freedom he wanted.

'I'm still not strong enough. I need to get much stronger if I want to live the way Mom told me to.'

Staying like this for longer sounded like a very good idea, but he had a time limit. After spending about ten minutes in the building, Shui left the area while dragging the fat man's body.

A short moment after Shui left with the fat man, there was an ongoing conversation within the mansion of the Wright family. Though the mansion itself was only as big as Nikolai's, the land it was on was as large as the martial academy. In a room of this mansion, the current head of the Wright family spoke to the stern old man that was his father, and the previous head, while he was drinking tea.

"Father, why did you waste money on that small shop? Aren't there much better places for us to expand our business?"

"It's just a little bit of sentimentality is all. I remembered saying that I would take the place a long time ago, so I simply did so."

Jacob was aware that though his father was still as sharp as ever due to his early Earth Realm cultivation, he would sometimes make random decisions that didn't make sense to him.

"Fine, but I wish you would at least inform me firs-"

BOOM!

The sound of a sudden explosion at the entrance to the Wright estate reached all the way over to them.

This was a day for him to cause mayhem, so Shui didn't even bother acting polite. When he made it to the entrance of the Wright estate and the guards tried to stop him, he used 'Amplify', 'Position' and 'Explosion' to blow up the guards along with the gate. There should have also been several arrays to hinder enemies, but those were easily deactivated. As he walked past the smell of iron and smoke, several Soul Realm warriors came rushing at him but none were at the level where he needed to draw for a weapon. With rapid and constant uses of 'Amplify' and 'Lightning', Shui left scorched corpses in his path.

When the estate was in clear view, as many as ten late Soul Realm guards were in his way. Since the main family was at home, they would definitely fight with their lives on the line, and that resolve inspired Shui's cruel side.

He took out his bone greatsword and threw away the fat man's body since he learnt what he needed, but his next move wasn't with the sword. By the time they noticed the movement of nature energy, there was already a gigantic blade of ice formed from water vapour plunging into the mansion. Shui could activate the power of inscriptions anywhere within his perception so it wasn't much trouble for him to use 'Amplify' and 'Condense' to change the water in the air into an icy blade.

It was too late for them to block the blade so they tried attacking it instead. However, it shattered all too easily and then transformed into several smaller blades that rained down on the mansion. Seeing the rumble drenched in blood and water, the guards were shocked still, making them easy prey for Shui's blade.

"Really now, bodyguards should be more adaptive. Don't you think so, old man Anders?"

Above the rumble was a group of five protected by a blue barrier. There were three men, a woman and a child, and they were members of the Wright family. Thanks to the information Shui had obtained over the years, he knew that Anders of the Wright family was in the Earth Realm so he didn't expect him to get killed by his technique. However, with the mansion destroyed it was already his victory.

As soon as the group of five touched ground again, Anders spat large volumes of blood.

"Father!"

"Grandpa!"

Although he was only in his late one hundreds, Anders had severely damaged his vitality many years ago so his injury would act up anytime he had to exert too much power. If it was inside the mansion, then there was an array to quickly stabilise his condition, but without it he would be as weak as a cripple for several hours.

While Anders continued to cough out blood, Shui stepped towards the family. Jacob's wife was the first one to sense his approach and she alerted the rest. They glared at him with hatred in their eyes but he approached with a calm smile. When there was only two cales of distance between them, both of Anders' sons confronted him. They didn't need to ask why he was attacking them; they had more than enough enemies who would want to. They were both at the peak of the Soul Realm and fuming in rage but that didn't change the expression on Shui's face.

"I know this is a stupid thing to say, but if you get out of the way I can spare you, you know. I'm just here for the old man."

Neither of them, answered Shui. They instead took out several expensive artifacts and got ready to engage. They couldn't tell the cultivation of the scholar in front of them so they had to go all out from the start. Multiple brilliantly glowing abilities attacked Shui, but there was not a pause in his step. He was able to take the attack of a golden electrolion on the verge of becoming a high beast, so how could he not make it through this? Although the power of their artifacts was very impressive, evolved beasts as strong as the golden electrolion could fend off early Earth Realm experts and their money wasn't enough to buy that much power.

Shui's slow and steady approach made them fearful as they used every spell, art and artifact they had against him. They thought that if they could at least tell that his cultivation was higher they could give up easier, but little did they know it would actually make it harder for them to back down.

When Shui stood a mere two feet away from them, they were breathing heavily due to exhaustion while he hadn't even broken a sweat. Since he had already given them a chance and there were no other considerations he had to make, Shui went straight ahead and killed them. To finish them off cleanly, he grabbed their necks and quickly drained them of their essences before dropping the withered husks that they became.

"Ahh!!!"

After witnessing such a sight, the woman and her child screamed with tears rolling down their cheeks as they looked at Shui. It would be easy to take care of these two as well, but they weren't even a threat and he wouldn't have to worry about them taking revenge. The mother was one thing, but Shui would rather not kill a child.

Just by looking into his eyes, Shui was able to knock away the boy's consciousness.

"You, take him away."

"Hu, huh?"

The woman looked at him with confusion along with the fear.

"If you want to die that's fine, but are you okay with leaving him alone."

Finally comprehending, the woman looked back and forth between Shui, her dead husband, her weakened father-in-law, and her son. She definitely felt intense hatred for the man in front of her, who destroyed everything she held dear, but there was also fear that crippled resistance. She hastily picked up her son's unconscious body and ran away without looking back.

"I'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry."