Official mages

Ray scanned the surrounding area one last time after killing the knight to make sure there was no surprise. After his aura found nothing else, he walked over to the knight and inspected his body.

When he was fighting the knights, he could already vaguely feel their strength with his aura. Coming up close and inspecting their bodies confirmed his guess– they were all fairly low level knights.

He picked up the dead man's body and thought about what to do next. His guards were also eyeing him silently, waiting for him to give them orders.

After a moment of thinking, he dropped the bodies and ordered the guards to bring him the bodies of the mother and the daughter.

"After you bring back their bodies, wait patiently outside my door until I'm finished doing my… meditation. Do not enter the door under any circumstances, and do not leave under any circumstances. Understood?"

"Understood!"

They didn't dare to disobey Ray's words, as they just witnessed his power first hand. Hearing someone was powerful, and watching the power with your own eyes are 2 completely different things.

Once the bodies were all laid down in front of him, Ray started eating the corpses one by one. After eating almost 40 knights in a row while traveling back from Harlington, Ray no longer felt any disgust in eating human corpses; he was completely desensitized.

10 minutes later, Ray stood up from his spot and wiped the blood off of him. He opened the door and let the guards know they were leaving.

One of the guards peaked out of the corner of his eye to the room the bodies were in. To his surprise, none of the bodies could be found. There was only a pool of blood lying on the floor.

His face became pale as he quickly turned away from the room. The guard thought he was sneaky with his actions, but Ray noticed his behavior the whole time.

He noticed it, but he wasn't worried at all. From now until the day the guards died, he would keep them under constant supervision. The day of their death wasn't far away, so Ray ignored the guards peeking and moved on from the house.

He scanned his body with his aura after fully digesting all the bodies.

Before, he was around 12.5% through. After eating all 3 bodies, he was around 14% done with his body training technique.

He sighed internally after seeing the results; it will take quite a bit of effort to reach the highest level. 'I suppose it's better than sitting in one spot for decades,' Ray thought while licking the stray blood off his lips.

He thought about going out and killing more knights, but decided to be a bit safer and get back to Loyer. Not to mention he had an opportunity to use the stone of light tomorrow, which George made a big deal out of.

He still had a lot of time left until midnight, so he casually walked through the streets and watched the people around him.

At some point, a teenager tried sneaking up and robbing one of the guards. Ray stayed silent when he saw the teenager approach the knight with hostile intentions since he wanted to see what the knight would do.

Just as the boy was about to take something from the guard's pocket, the guard's sword came rushing down and chopped the boy's head off in a single stroke.

The bustling crowd around them became silent for a moment, but they quickly went back to normal, now avoiding the dead corpse.

The guard also paid no attention to the boy, not even giving him so much as a glance the entire time.

Ray also pretended it didn't happen and continued along his way.

Nothing else eventful happened all the way until they came close to the wall.

As they came close to the wall surrounding Loyer, they could hear angry shouts coming from a mage wearing all blue.

"What do you mean entrance denied? Do you know who I am?" The mage screamed into the apprentice's face.

"S-Sir, members of different houses aren't allowed past the Loyer's walls." The guard stammered while backing away from the mage.

Ray watched in the distance as the mage with green clothes shouted at the Loyer perimeter guard.

He was about to leave the scene, when suddenly, the mage turned around and stared directly at Ray from hundreds of kilometers away.

"Another Loyer rat!" The mage complained.

"That's it, you took it too far. You're even trying to ambush me from behind? I'll have to take matters into my own hands." The mage announced with a voice of justice.

The apprentice guarding the wall wanted to say something back like, "What do you mean ambush you? Your a official mage for fuck's sake!"

But a thick vine burst from the official mage's hands and wrapped around both Ray and the guarding mage.

Ray was stuck in place, he couldn't even move a finger. He couldn't even see the vine coming towards him, it looked like it teleported. He could feel energy from his soul being forcefully sucked by the vine as he grew weaker and weaker.

Just when he thought he would pass out, the vines suddenly went limp and stopped siphoning Ray's energy. He collapsed to the floor beneath him as he had no energy left in his body, but he quickly recovered and tried to see what just happened.

Another mage showed up to the scene, seemingly even angrier than the official mage who attacked him. "What do you think you're doing, Garth? Showing up at Loyer's door steps and attacking two of our members, who do you think you are?"

"What am I doing? I'll tell you what I was doing. The apprentice guarding the wall dared to argue with me, and didn't let me pass. I was simply teaching a lesson." Garth replied, as if he was fully in the right.

The official mage grit his teeth before saying, "That's his job you idiot! He's guarding the wall!"

"Not to mention the other apprentice sneaking up beside me. This was all in self defense, they could have been ambushing me!" Garth righteously argued back.

The official mage's face turned red as he heard Garth's arguments. "So that's how you want to play. Was me humiliating you in front of your entire faction not enough? You came back for more?"

Garth jeered, "Do you think I'm scared of you, Ristil? Do you think I've been sitting on my ass like you have in the past few decades?"

Ristil's expression became stiff after hearing Garth's insults. "I suppose I'll have to see for myself whether you have been slacking off or not."

Visible light particles started popping out of nowhere and launching itself at Garth. Garth only laughed in response as he started punching all the particles with an energy infused fist. "Is this all you have?" Garth taunted Ristil while destroying all the particles Ristil could create.

"You should know already, this is just a test. I wanted to make sure your strength didn't fall in the past few years.

"You think my strength has fallen? I see your arrogance hasn't fallen since we last met."

Garth disappeared from the spot he was just flying in, then reappeared right in front of Ristil. Green energy was overflowing around his fist as he smashed his arm into Ristil's chest.

Right before Garth's fist could reach Ristil's chest, Ristil teleported a few hundred meters away and left a cage made of light in his place.

"Do you think I wouldn't predict such a simple attack?" Ristil sneered.

Garth started rapidly punching the cage of light. A couple seconds later, the cage broke open and Gath was set free, but it was already too late by then.

While Garth was trapped in the cage, hundreds of thousands of light particles came together to form a sphere around the cage. When Garth finally broke through, the particles collapsed inward towards Garth and tried to crush him into bits.

A massive explosion of energy happened around Garth's body, causing Ray's vision to become temporarily immobile as he could only see blinding light everywhere.

The blinding light passed by just as quickly as it came, leaving behind a bloodied figure in the sky.

His body seemed to be shaking for a moment before becoming completely still. He didn't say anything and immediately left the scene. He didn't even bother looking another time at Ristil as he fled the scene.

Ristil frowned as he saw Garth leave. "I knew it, he was just here to test my power." He muttered to himself.

Ristil didn't bother looking at the injured apprentices and quickly left the scene, leaving behind the now destroyed environment.