SPIRIT SOUL

After taking a few deep breaths, Kyle relaxed a little and loosened his iron grip over the wind ability.

Through this, the wind spears dispersed, while the wind platforms below him vanished.

Post which he landed on a thick branch, and wiped away the sweat shining on his forehead.

Afterward, he once again activated his wind ability to slow down his fall as he jumped down to the ground.

Landing next to the body of the young Aeroa, he sighed deeply.

His body was riddled with numerous small holes which the wind spears had created as they had pierced through his body along with his wings.

Blood was still seeping out of the dead corpse, creating a small dark red puddle around it.

Grasping the soul that had detached itself from the body of the deceased, Kyle just shook his head.

"Thank you for your Soul energy…Be more fortunate in your next life!"

Somehow, Kyle felt bad for killing the young Aeroa, but he had been unable to see an alternative to protect himself.

The young Aeroa would have never given up, and crippling him would have been even worse.

Frowning a bit, Kyle clearly understood that he was comparing his past life's condition and circumstances to the situation in which the young Aeroa was.

There were a few things they had had in common, including their tenacity to never give up.

This had been even more reason for Kyle to kill the young Aeroa as he could clearly understand that his own life would have been in danger.

He couldn't just have mercy on someone, who was ready to kill him for selfish gains!

After devouring the Soul energy of the young Aeroa, Kyle released the tiny remnants before turning around.

Within a few seconds, he ran his eyes through the surroundings in all directions to look for any incoming attack.

'No one is coming for me? That's good, I guess!'

Being able to perceive the hues around him, Kyle understood that no one was advancing toward him.

He must have attracted lots of attention when he defeated a Peak Vitae stage Aeroa while being at the Low Vitae stage himself.

And that was after considering that the young Aeroa had forcefully released the shape of a Roc.

Kyle presumed that it was some sort of forbidden technique that drained the life force of the practitioner.

But that was something he couldn't be sure about.

Nonetheless, Kyle clearly sensed that the beings in his surrounding had stopped moving, and some had even ceased their fight against each other in order to observe his fight against the young Aeroa.

There were only a few that had expected him to win against the Aeroa, with the least of them being from the Aeroa race.

They knew that their comrade had been the most desperate to improve his potential, and what kind of technique had been used to manifest the wind materialized Roc.

Because of that, they clearly understood that Kyle was not to be underestimated, even if he was alone.

Right now, Kyle was exhausted, which turned him into a great target to attack.

At the same time, an exhausted individual would likely resort to desperate means to ensure his survival.

This made it difficult for the smaller groups to decide whether to attack him or not.

If they were to know that every single second in which they hesitated to attack him allowed Kyle to replenish a portion of his Soul force, they would have already acted.

Not knowing that Arashi had already merged with Kyle, and was currently absorbing large amounts of energy from the surroundings, they could only see a masked man standing above the corpse of the young Aeroa.

Not even five minutes passed, in which Kyle focused on replenishing his Soul force, while observing the surrounding area intently and he had already regained his prime state!

Feeling fully energized Kyle jumped up and down, stretching his body and thereby releasing the last traces of tension before returning to the treetop.

Afterward, he climbed up the higher branches, so as to avoid the groups on the ground, and the Aeroa at the same time.

Sensing that Kyle's energy had already been replenished, most people were astonished.

They had believed that it would take him, at least, half an hour before he would be able to even lift a finger.

The amount of energy he had utilized, in combination with the numerous actions he had multitasked, should have been extremely taxing, after all!

And that was excluding the burden of maintaining control over multiple complex creations of his wind affinity!

Kyle couldn't care less about the astonishment he caused others.

He had to pay attention to survive the Brawl and take the seed.

There were still several hours left before he was allowed to leave with the Mutated Licara flower seed, and it would be a shame to die now after fighting for hours.

Nobody attacked him for now, but that didn't mean that he was safe.

Rather, Kyle knew that a large portion of his strength and combat prowess had already been revealed to the others and they could have studied his attack patterns to come up with ways to defeat him.

There were only a few things that were hidden.

If possible, he would have preferred for it to stay like this.

But Kyle knew that this was unlikely to be the case as the dangers lurking around him were bound to intensify.

The young Aeroa might have been desperate, but he had been alone, and not one of the true prodigies.

Because of these factors, Kyle was mentally prepared for an onslaught of numerous powerful opponents, all of whom would join forces to take him down.

However, even after several hours had passed, nobody seemed to think of attacking him.

While he sat on the treetop, there were intense battles occurring on the ground, and thousands of corpses littered all over as the clang and clash of weapons alongwith the anguished cries of the fallen punctuated the air.

It was a feast to the Lord of Death, causing Kyle to frown.

Yet, instead of doing nothing, he made use of the groups that fought against each other in order to snatch away the Soul energy of the souls that ascended to the height of the treetops.

He maintained this altitude most of the time using his wind affinity to his advantage while avoiding the races from the ground and air simultaneously.

It had worked for the vast majority of the time, but the moment the countdown of his treasure reached below four hours, the situation began to slowly change.

From mostly being ignored by others due to unknown reasons, the first group of Aeroa turned their attention to Kyle and started testing his attacks with the use of their wind affinity.

Instead of materializing wind currents, they made use of the surrounding wind, which was something Kyle did in most cases.

It prevented the waste of his Soul force that would have been required to materialize the wind with his affinity.

But owing to the usage of the surrounding wind, Kyle was able to use his own wind affinity to forcefully avert the trajectory of the attacks that were bound to hit him.

Using traces of his Soul force to evade them, if only by a hair's breadth, it was possible for him to prevent being hit, and injured.

At the same time, he didn't use much Soul force, causing the Aeroa to waste their own mana, while Kyle's used up Soul force was replenished only a moment later.

The Aeroa noticed this quite early, forcing them to change the way they attacked.

However, owing to the fact that they were unwilling to descend into the most crowded area of the forest, the densely packed treetops, they decided to avert their attention to other groups on the ground.

The trees on which Kyle was expertly hopping and jumping had numerous branches that were connected to one another.

This made it quite difficult for the Aeroa to fly properly.

Having witnessed how the young Aeroa at the peak of the Vitae stage died, most of them were unwilling to sacrifice themselves.

Even cutting down the trees was considered a waste of their energy.

The wind affinity was considered more of an agility-based affinity, rather than focusing on lethality and destruction.

Thus it would require more energy to cut down the trees and even then he would slink away to another tree, wasting their time and efforts.

But this was not the case for the Kandras race that had had enough of Kyle's cowardly behavior.

Changing the shape of their arms, they transformed them into huge battle axes.

Within a matter of less than half an hour, more than a thousand Kandras had cut down the vast majority of trees.

This changed the landscape of the surrounding drastically, forcing Kyle to the ground.

Simultaneously, it allowed the Aeroa to gain a huge advantage as their sight and movements were not restricted owing to the numerous densely grown trees anymore.

Kyle was not sure if the Kandras had thoroughly thought about what they had done.

Earlier, everyone had been able to hide, or use the surroundings to their advantage.

But that had become close to impossible due to the Kandras race's intervention as they were simply smashing and cutting anything and everything that came in their way.

Even worse was that some Kandras had started to store the tree logs in their spatial rings, in order to clear the area.

As such, the densely packed forest turned into an open area with no cover or hiding spot and far more than ten thousand Brawl participants.

Meanwhile, Kyle could be considered to be in the center of the dome, attracting quite a lot of attention as he climbed down from the trees and reached the ground with slow steps.

His fall had slowed down due to the usage of his wind affinity, and his mind was crystal clear as he attempted to find a way out of the current situation.

'Leaving through the air is still possible, but the Aeroa are faster in the air…Meanwhile on the ground the Myda and Kandras can attack me at any time…'

The current situation was certainly not great, and Kyle couldn't help but frown deeply.

He took a glance towards the decimated numbers of the Nasga, Demihumans, and Aldra race, but this made him feel even more frustrated.

'Looks like nobody will be able to leave with a profit.'

Each race had lost thousands of their prodigies.

This made Kyle doubt the purpose and motive of creating the event of the Brawl, to begin with.

'Are they really trying to nurture prodigies for their own good, or did the Guild master of the Shalivra valley simply try to decimate the number of prodigies of several races? Maybe he did that in order to feel less threatened by them?'

If what he assumed was correct, it would mean that the Guild master of the Shalivra valley was not as powerful as he had initially expected.

As such, it was unlikely for his latter thought to be the truth.

Yet, something bothered Kyle as he stood on a bunch of gigantic logs, looking at the precarious situation that unfolded itself all around him!

An unsettling feeling spread through his entire body, the more beings died, and everything seemed to become even worse over time.

The Brawl turned fierce as he saw how the six different races began to clash upon each other, tearing one another apart, painting the ground in a deep red color.

Meanwhile, Kyle felt as if his mind was going blank, and without meaning to, his gaze diverted towards the centermost part of the Sadorla forest.

There he saw a small flower that was surrounded by a translucent dome, protecting it from being destroyed.

Yet, there was one thing that made his eyes widen in shock, as realization spread through his entire being.

It was a red hue that pulsated vibrantly, becoming denser over time, the more beings died, the more blood sickered into the grond!

'Oh no…this must be a fucking joke, right?!' Kyle nearly shouted out as he looked at the tiny dome that barely surrounded the Mutated Licara flower to protect it from being destroyed.

'The Master of the Guild had never intended to help anyone…he just uses everyone as his chess pieces!'