Dealing with the authorities of the Jungle Expedition should have been really difficult. However, it was a great fortune that most of them were Natives of the Origin Expanse.
It seemed like the Zentika Empire's council wanted to put Natives at the top of the Jungle Expedition's hierarchy to improve their image. The idea was good, but the issue was that Natives were naturally weaker than Awakened. They didn't possess Soultraits, or Artifacts to strengthen them.
They could only rely on the powers they were born with.
'I cannot find the Twin Lions.' Michael realized after he took a glance through the commanding base of the Jungle Expedition's camp.
'If I can tackle them separately that would be even better!'
He had already summoned the Onyx Dragon Armor Set and Seron Voulge. Two layers of Enhancement covered his Artifacts, and Eagle Eyes were also fully unleashed.
Following that, Michael also used Extraction to shroud Seron Voulge with the golden streams of Extraction.
Michael was not sure how strong Extraction would be in combat, but he hoped that it was enough to push him to the winning side.
Rushing forward with fast, but silent strides, Michael gave Icarus the signal to attack.
The Greater Eagle screeched out loudly before diving down from the other side of the camp. Icarus' screech pulled the attention of the authorities away from Michael.
It provided enough time to appear amid the five Tier-2 Natives, who unsheathed their weapons to clash with Icarus.
Yet, before they could inflict an injury to the Greater Eagle, Michael pierced out with Seron Voulge.
His physical strength was on par with a Lowest-stage Tier-2 Adventurer, and his Tier-1 Artifacts had been enhanced two times.
Being able to see every single detail and movement in his field of vision, Michael pulled back Seron Voulge just as it was about to pierce through the chest of the Native Lionheart.
Blazing flames burst forth from the Native Lionheart. He had instinctively unleashed a great deal of his power upon sensing an incoming lethal attack from behind. The Native Lionheart turned around, slashing down in the most likely position for the unknown opponent to appear in. However, there was nobody.
Michael had already moved to the side while cutting the Native Lionheart's legs multiple times. The Native Lionheart groaned in pain, but he moved quickly, ready to end Michael's life.
Little did he know that Michael's golden streams had already entered the subtle wounds inflicted by Seron Voulge. He extracted a few drops of blood with great difficulty before he used Spirit Whip to inflict mental damage. The Native Lionheart didn't expect a mental attack, and he failed to protect himself against it.
He struggled and realized too late that something had infiltrated his body. A fountain of blood gushed out of the small wounds on the Native Lionheart's legs.
'Using Extraction on living organisms with strong willpower is really difficult. Maybe I should use Extraction differently in combat…' Michael concluded after he used a great deal of his power to extract some of the Native Lionheart's blood.
Instead of continuing to waste his mental power and origin energy on something that hardly helped him in battle, Michael chose a different approach in the utilization of Extraction.
He expanded his range of Extraction and extracted the soil beneath two other Natives. Before they could realize what was going on, a small pit opened up beneath them. They fell less than two meters deep into a pit, but that was already enough to take away their whole momentum.
Michael twisted his body in an awkward angle to evade the incoming slash of the Native Lionheart before he changed his target quickly. He used Enhancement on Spirit Whip and lashed out at the two Natives who had been dragged down into a narrow pit.
They were just about to jump out of the small, narrow pit when the enhanced Spirit Whip impacted hard. They suffered a backlash and lost their momentum a second time.
Afterward, they required too much time to regain their composure. A cold blade pierced through the neck of the Native Destors just as he was about to look up.
Michael twisted Seron Voulge's blade in the Destors' neck before he dived to the right. His Eagle Eyes and high perception detected an attack from that direction. He avoided getting cut in half by a hair's breadth and simultaneously gained the opportunity to close his distance to the other Native in the second narrow pit.
Michael thrust Seron Voulge forward without hesitation, even ignoring the blazing flames that shot toward him dangerously fast.
Moving instinctively, Michael utilized Extraction to extract the oxygen around him. The range of his extraction was intentionally kept small to lower his energy consumption, but that didn't matter. He could extinguish the blazing flames around him in a short moment. And that was all he needed to thrust the voulge's blade deep into the chest of the Native in the second pit.
The blazing flames engulfing him slowly dimmed down. They were extinguished before hitting his skin, but that didn't mean Michael didn't feel like he was burning to a crisp.
He moved quickly.
'You cannot see me engulfed in blazing flames, can you?' Michael asked himself while dashing toward the Native Lionheart.
Certain that the Native Lionheart couldn't see or sense him properly, Michae accelerated. He slashed Seron Voulge horizontally through the air and felt the collision between his weapon and the Native Lionheart's sword just a moment later.
The Native Lionheart was strong, but it felt like the Lionheart was focusing on his proficiency with his innate fire affinity. His physical strength was not nearly perfectly refined like Michael's. Michael used this advantage to change his direction at once. He moved to the side while twisting Seron Voulge to change the trajectory of the Lionheart's slash.
Twisting Seron Voulge meant that its blade was pulled downward and that he had to retrieve Seron Voulge if he wanted to use the blade to cut the Native Lionheart apart.
Fortunately, Michael didn't have to rely on the voulge's blade. He still had the pole-like lower part of the voulge to use. Using the momentum he gained by twisting Seron Voulge, Michael used his entire force to crush the voulge's blunt end onto the Lionheart's head.
A pained groan escaped the Lionheart's lips and the unmistakable sound of something breaking reached his ears.
Michael used the enhanced Spirit Whip to lash out at the Native Lionheart before dashing closer to the Lionheart. He ended up right in front of the Lionheart, and raised his right leg with great momentum, kicking the Native between his legs.
Afterward, Seron Voulge disappeared inside the War Rune, freeing Michael's hands to deliver several heavy punches toward the Lionheart's head.
The Native Lionheart suffered and fell to the ground, blood gushing out of his nose and mouth, yet Michael didn't give him enough time to breathe.
Seron Voulge appeared in his hands once again. Michael spun his weapon and thrust downward with the razor-sharp blade.
The next moment blood sprayed through the surroundings.
Michael had successfully killed the third Native in charge of the Jungle Expedition, leaving only two more to deal with.
Until now, Michael caused considerable commotion. However, he had yet to find the Twin Lions.
His focus had been on the battle but Icarus hadn't screeched out loudly to warn him either. That was a little weird, and it impacted Michael's fight as he dealt with the remaining two Tier-2 Natives.
Since his physical strength was on par with theirs, and he had three combat-oriented 4-Star Soultraits, it was not further problematic to deal with the remaining two opponents.
Nonetheless, multi-tasking was not easy. Soultraits were stronger the higher their star rating, however, at the same time, they were more complex to utilize as well.
Enhancement was a rather simple Soultrait, and it was similar to Eagle Eyes, but Spirit Whip wasn't that easy to control.
Using all three Soultraits simultaneously, while also trying to gain an advantage with the utilization of 5-Star Extraction, Michael suffered a lot mentally.
He emerged victorious at last, but he had a bad headache.
It was his great fortune that the Twin Lions had yet to be found, otherwise, Michael would have a big problem to deal with.
He retrieved a few potions and pills to replenish his stamina, energy and to alleviate the pain killing his head simultaneously.
After that was over, Michael rested his mind for a few minutes.
A few injured Adventurers and Mercenaries approached the commanding tent in the camp, but Michael finished them off using the Siltang Bow. They didn't know what happened before it was already way too late.
Once Michael had no more enemies to deal with, he decided to use Extraction on the five Natives' corpses. Interestingly enough, he extracted one Memory Orb – which was a first.
'Now I can extract the memories of Natives as well?' Michael thought with a small smile on his face. Upgrading Extraction to a 5-Star Soultrait had been the right choice.
He stored the loot extracted from the corpses before devouring the Memory Orb.
A moment later, streams of memories flooded Michael's mind. The memories entailed information about the Jungle Expedition, a few secret tasks they had been given, detailed information about the Twin Lions' bad demeanor, and combat prowess, and more information Michael could make use of in the future.
Michael digested the memories slowly to imprint every little piece of it deep into his mind, but just as he was about to finish digesting the last bits, humongous blazing flames burned down the commanding tent of the Jungle Expedition.
At this point, Michael knew; The Twin Lions had arrived!
