Michael was shocked at the sudden arrival of six enemies. Each of them used a Soul Technique to attack him.
Michael felt a layer of darkness pass through his eyes. His eyes dimmed for a moment and he lost the ability to see. Simultaneously, the sounds around him were muffled, which made it increasingly difficult to pinpoint where everyone was located.
It was the first time that someone tried to blind him, and it was far more uncomfortable than expected. He pulled Maria even closer to him and unleashed the Dome of Extraction to sense everything within. Every little movement was easily detected, thus pinpointing the location of the six Descendants attacking them.
Michael sensed a sword slashing toward his head. He twisted his body and pulled backward, while still holding onto Maria. Michael channeled a tremendous amount of energy into his Spirit Eyes and added a few layers of Enhancement, therefore dispelling the blindness lingering on him.
'Their Soultraits are stronger than that of the Tekur, but they don't possess nearly as much Soul Power. Spirit Eyes is stronger than your idiotic blindfold!' He cursed in his heart, manifesting a Soul Glacicle Bullet which he further strengthened with Reinforced Sword Qi before unleashing it at once.
The Soul Glacicle Bullet whizzed through the air with shocking velocity. It reached the nearest enemy in an instant and pierced through his chest.
"Wha…." The Descendant could barely exclaim in shock when blood splattered through the air. His chest was pierced through neatly and a flower of frozen blood blossomed. Michael released a small Qi Sword to slice it through the Descendant's forehead. It was a safety measure. After all, Michael had no idea if the other Descendants could transform into a disgusting Undead Skeleton as well. And he was glad he did not wait to find out.
Blood and brain mass spurted from the Descendant's forehead right before he collapsed to the ground. Michael didn't pay much attention to this. Instead, he was more worried about the rapid attack of another Descendant. He'd summoned a Sword using his Soultrait and used his Soul Technique to appear behind Michael, backstabbing him with ease. Michael had yet to manage producing enough Soul Energy to activate Heavenly Beast Physique. He was too slow to react and ended up with a blade pierced through his back.
All Michael could barely do was to prevent his internal organs from sustaining damage. He groaned in pain and managed to procure more Soul Energy to use Heavenly Beast Physique. His physical strength shot to its peak and his natural regeneration increased rapidly.
Michael didn't move an inch. The enemy's blade was still inside him.Thus, he manifested two dozen Glacicle Swords with several layers of Enhancement and Reinforced Sword Qi shrouded before unleashing them onto the Descendant behind him from all directions. The Descendant had twisted his blade inside Michael's body and was about to tear it out with great force when the Enhanced Qi Glacicle Swords came from all directions.
The young Descendant was about to use his Elite Class Soul Technique a second time when he noticed that his Soul Power had been drained entirely. He possessed just enough Soul Power to use the weakest form of the Elite Class Soul Technique he'd obtained from the Hyuman. It was not possible for him to use it a second time.
All he could do was use his Inheritance Technique to unleash his Perfect Mastered Sword Style. His movements were smooth and fluid. He destroyed a dozen Enhanced Qi Glacicle Swords before they could reach him. But that was not nearly enough. The remaining dozen smashed into him. Some shattered upon impacting on his armor set, whereas the other pierced through his clothes, skin, and flesh.
The destroyed and shattered Glacicle Swords turned into freezing mist, which was then sucked toward the Descendant as Michael had also used Insert to push the freezing mist inside the enemies' bodies.
Two Descendants were dead, leaving only traitors to deal with. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Two of the Descendants had weakened Michael for a moment, using their Soultraits to blindfold him and muffle his hearing before they moved on to trying to capture and kidnap Maria Seraph.
They tried to remove Michael's hand from around her, at first, only to end up stabbing and cutting his arm until his embrace around Maria would loosen. However, Michael didn't let go of Maria. His arm was soaked in his warm blood and was trembling like a fragile branch caught in a typhoon, yet Michael never let go.
He promised to protect Maria so he would do that!
His Dome of Extraction expanded. He used Insert onto Extraction and allowed thousands of tiny Extraction tendrils to burst forth. The Extraction tendrils shot toward the four Descendants and entered their bodies without waiting to search for injuries to pass through their skin. Insert was the only shortcut they required to invade the targets' bodies.
Michael then used several layers of Enhancement onto Spirit Eyes once again. He used Spiritual Domination on the two traitorous Descendants who were trying to kidnap Maria Seraph. Their vision turned white for a moment and rolled up the moment the spiritual assault impacted heavily on their mind. In the next moment, they sensed something weird within their bodies. The spiritual attack nearly knocked them out, and it weakened their mental defenses for more than ten seconds. That was just enough for the Extraction tendrils to spread throughout their bodies to drain their origin energy and start growing by devouring their lifeforce.
The Aethyr Blade manifested in Michael's left hand. Strengthened with six layers of Enhancement and Reinforced Sword Qi, Michael slashed out. He pierced through the leather armor of the young man to Maria's left and severed his arm at once. In the next moment, Michael whirled Maria around himself to shield her with his body while simultaneously slicing through the throat of the Descendant, whose arm was flung through the air.
Simultaneously, a Soul Glacicle Bullet formed next to Michael. He'd produced just enough Soul Energy to produce the Soul Glacicle Bullet and release it a second before the other traitorous Descendant could recuperate from the shock left behind by Spirit Eyes' Spiritual Domination.
The Descendant's forehead was decorated with a hole and a crimson flower blossoming out of it. The next moment he collapsed, his brain and head chilled to ice.
Michael was slowly growing tired. Using his Soul Techniques was still acceptable but protecting Maria while dealing with six Descendants, all of whom were capable of using Soul Techniques was not exactly an easy task. As if that was not enough work, Michael was also supplying Maria with energy to ensure that she could cleanse the deadly fog soon.
There were still two more adversaries to kill as well.
Michael was just about to assault the remaining two traitorous Descendants when he saw a mass of thunder shoot through the air. The mass of thunder was none other than Killian Zeus, who was hurled through the surroundings like a Ping Pong ball. He crashed into the last two traitorous Descendants who screamed at the top of their lungs.
Killian roared loudly and jumped up. His armor of lightning and thunder expanded, shrouding one of the traitorous Descendants, who could only scream for a few more seconds before he fainted. The smell of burned flesh permeated the air, but Killian didn't care about that. He was about to charge back at Raven, only to realize that the Undead Skeleton had disappeared.
The deadly fog was still around but Maria was working hard to cleanse it. Cut off from the death swirl within the Undead Skeleton, the deadly fog couldn't recuperate. It was cleansed and expelled from the other Descendants, who'd breathed it in, just before Maria collapsed.
She was drenched in sweat, leaning against Michael, who could barely hold her. His arms were soaked in blood and so was his lower back. He trembled violently and felt like falling asleep at any moment. But instead of being foolish enough to collapse now, Michael stopped channeling energy into Maria. Instead, he used Leviathan Diffusion to weave energy into his body before using the bits of energy his Shard of Archangel's Grace had accumulated.
A faint halo created above his head as he used Archangel's Grace to stop the several bleeding wounds all over his body. Killian saw Michael using Maria's Soultrait and grit his teeth. He felt like unleashing his anger of having lost against the Undead Skeleton near the end by thrashing Michael, but that didn't seem right.
They had other things to do.
Maybe, he could deal with Michael later.
Killian thus turned to the other traitorous Descendants. Only one of them was still conscious, but that could be changed quickly.
"Don't kill them," Michael said weakly.
"Why? They deserve to be executed on the spot! Nobody will question me if I tell them that they were traitors. I have Maria as a witness," Killian retorted, not hiding that he was displeased with Michael.
Michael noticed that Killian mentioned only Maria as a witness, not him, but he wasn't particularly bothered about that. If anything, it was quite fun. He was still a nobody to Killian and High Society.
'Well, that will change soon probably. I exposed Extraction and Insert in front of Maria. She must have noticed that I have a lot more Soul Power than before as well. The Soul Power increase is something I could explain with some white lies, but the rest…definitely not…'
Michael shook his head. They had to solve one issue at a time. He was slowly getting tired of hiding his secrets and was starting to think that he couldn't care less whether others found out about them or not. It would make some things more difficult for him once Extraction's power was exposed, but other stuff would become easier to explain and deal with.
"I can read their minds. We need to know if there are more traitors among the Descendants, who they are, and what their plan is," Michael explained, his voice filled with seriousness.
