Chapter 60

Maurice was a level 8 warrior who had been considered a gifted one in his small village when he was the first one to reach level 3 at the tender age of 12 before being admitted to a warrior training academy.

Being called a genius Maurice had great hopes for himself only to find that he was a frog in a well and there were hundreds of geniuses all over the academy each from a family which had the power to possibly slaughter his entire village and get away with it.

Training hard and grinding from the bottom he had finally reached the level of an established mercenary at the age of 21, becoming a level 8 warrior and was lucky enough to be recruited amongst the mercenary crew serving the Crown prince.

Settled in life in terms of wealth barring only a woman of a good family background Maurice enjoyed his every day having to guard the Crown Prince's castle, train and sleep in the quarters presented to the guards. Even in terms of risk, apart from some pesky insects sent by the second Prince as a means to harass the crown Prince, there was no real threat in his job. All he had to do was to follow protocol and fight as a unit with his team and there would not be any risk for his life especially him being a level 8 warrior making him incredibly resilient and capable of escaping with his life.

In other words it was a low risk high reward dream job to any independent mercenary who would go without income even for months. Standing with his partner Mo Han an eastern descendent from another small kingdom, Maurice patrolled the camp in a vigilant manner, knowing that they would be fighting against the assassins sent by the second Prince while chatting with Han every once in a while. The meeting to strategise the ambush of the second Prince forces had already been done with and the current situation of the enemy camp were being relayed every hour by the scouts.

Just as Mo Han was joking with Maurice about his new crush who was a noble's second daughter a streak of light passed and Mo Han entire body collapsed as if a string has been cut off from a puppet. Maurice stiffened his body and was about to reach for his sword when he saw his own body reaching for his sword from a third person's perspective and thought 'what is happening? How am I seeing myself?' when he saw his body fall to its knee and was without a head.

'Aah! am I dead? Well at least...' was the last thought process of Maurice as his brain stopped its function signalling the final moments of a genius who came from a small village.

A figure wearing a black robe with a hood to cover his face could be seen fleeting inside the camp from one tent to another without triggering any alarms set up by the mages within the camp. From what seemed to be a camp filled with life turned dead silent within a span of few minutes and the trained mercenaries who were on an average of level 7 were unable to even know what had killed them. That was the power of a mage. Their very ranking system differed from the warriors and knights.

Warriors and Knights though trained differently are fundamentally the same and had a total of 50 ranks and above which there were realms which were unknown as per the records stated about planet Aquamarine. A kingdom like the Arcadia only had a maximum of up to warrior of level 12 as the apex power simply because the land occupied by such small kingdoms lack resources as well as the general Qi level in the atmosphere. Due to lack of resources these small kingdoms have been abandoned by bigger kingdoms and are fought by people with smaller powers to vie resources nearer to their capability.

However mages were different. Unlike warriors and knights with many levels and ranks mages only had a total of 10 ranks and each rank upgradation brings about tremendous change to the power of the mage while such rank ups take years and sometimes even decades of hard work by such mages and the difficulty to move on to the next rank will increase for each level both in years and in resources. The mages Academy could only provide education and training for Adepts who are at a level which is less than 1 and up to level 1 while the military provides further knowledge for level 2 in the Arcadia kingdom making level 2 the maximum rank that a mage could achieve in this kingdom.

Finishing the small fries, the intruder finally set his sights at the lone big tent which belonged to the leader of the camp as well as the meeting point of the three mages. Whispering mysterious syllables the intruder conjured upon intense amount of elements causing a violent fluctuation of elements to attack the tent which was covered in magic runes for protection.

Despite knowing that such gathering of elemental energy would alarm the three mages in the tent thus defeating the whole purpose of the sneak attack, the hooded intruder didn't seem to mind much.

Elements gathered in both his hands in the form of a spinning influx sucking the element from the nature as if it was an insatiable sinkhole and hurtled towards the tent and the whole process took about a breath's time.

The elemental energy collected seemed to be in the nature of air as it was in light blue colour and it tore the entire tent apart and destroyed every object within the tent.

Three figures appeared before the hooded intruder revealing to be the three mages belonging to Crown Prince's faction. The handsome golden haired man who was the head of the camp saved the blue haired and green haired man at the last moment before using unique manipulation of weight and wind element to accelerate their escape.

The blue haired and the green haired mage looked towards the intruder and just the sight of him sent their mind in disarray indicating the difference in their strength while the golden haired man said with a pale face "A rank three mage!!. You are not a rogue mage. Who the hell are you?"

Without any intent to reply the Rank three mage lifted his hand and within two breath's time the torrential rain and wind started to pick up their speed and started gathering towards the mage creating a phenomenon where the clouds and rain forming in the area where the mages gathered.

The wind and lightning started to intensify making the entire jungle to feel this strangeness. This was felt by the mercenaries throughout the jungle including the group who escorted the future princess Cornelia as the group came to a halt and watched this scene in awe feeling the sheer power from it.

Though not directed towards them every mercenary felt a need to bow down towards this power including Sean who barely held to his will and not be like some of his mercenary team members while asking in shock "What the hell is this?".

Cornelia who had experienced such feeling before had a solemn look on her face while the shadow guards surrounded her with a grim look while saying only one word "Mage Lord" which was an expression coined towards a level 3 mage.

Experiencing the power of a mage for the first time gave a deep shock for Sean and an even more intense desire to improve his ranking by taking more gene enhancement serums but knew that forcing such things were not good for his future and could destroy the strong foundation which he had built. Gritting his teeth Sean used the carriage as cover and took a deep breath and calmed his raging emotions.

The people who were under most pressure from this phenomenon were the three mages who stood against the hooded intruder and the golden haired man gritted his teeth while spat the words "Weather manipulation" and shouted at his subordinates to take cover before using almost 80% of his mana to start gathering earth element to form a dome shaped shield covering all three of them.

To fortify the dome's defence the blond haired man asked his subordinates to infuse more mana into it. Despite the despair the three mages felt on knowing that the hooded figure was a Mage Lord the three tried their best to survive his onslaught and the blond haired man was also a Rank 2 mage which gave the other two Rank 1 mages some form of hope to escape.

Without being perturbed by the dome shaped defence, the hooded mage sent his attack which shaped itself in the form of a huge drill while many rain drops stung towards the dome like a porcupines thorn.

Despite having been infused by mana of three mages, the attack sent by the hooded figure drilled holes in the dome while constantly consuming the mana infused in it before completely penetrating the dome and hitting the three mages at point blank.

The water drops which had crystallised and turned into thorn like weapon by the hooded figure shredded the two 1st Rank mage and drilled holes near the hands and chest dying the robe of the Rank 2 blond haired mage.

The blond haired mage dropped on one knee with blood dripping on the ground and looked at his subordinates who were dead on the ground with shock on their eyes still present even after death and felt lost and bitter.

He did not know why they were being targeted by a Mage Lord and felt that he would not survive tonight. With the thought of at least sending a warning to the group escorting Cornelia, the blond haired man reached to his pocket to send a distress signal to the shadow guards however the second he reached for his pocket he felt a sharp pain in his arm before getting detached and falling to the ground spilling more blood on the ground.

Pain filled his mind but still with clarity he glared at the hooded figure while thinking of taking a drastic measure. With a plan formulating inside the blond haired man he exhaled while still on his knee and waited as if he was waiting for his death.

To engage in a talk the blond haired man asked "Why are we being targeted?".

Hearing this the hooded figure chuckled while strolled towards the blond haired man at a leisure pace and said "No particular reason. I am just collecting souls for my experiments. Having a Rank 2 mage's soul would be of great help for me so die". The hooded figure stopped at arm's length from the blond and sent a green energy towards the heart of the blond haired mage aiming at his soul core.

Knowing what the hooded figure had planned, the blond haired mage tried to destroy his soul and commit suicide but his actions stiffened and he was too late as his soul was captured and absorbed inside a separate crystal ball.

Going towards the other mages the hooded intruder stored their soul in two other crystal ball before returning to the scene to absorb all the souls from the rest of the corpses before setting the entire camp on fire which burnt all the bodies despite there being so much rain.

Looking towards the sky the hooded figure chuckled while whispering "Ah what a fulfilling day. I will hunt for a few more days before leaving this backward region".