55 Copycat

I could feel other people following as I spread my Soul Control.

"There are seven people, Aunt. Be careful, Three." I nodded towards them and they went ahead.

"Be careful, Kaff."

"You be careful, Mom."

With a smile, I flew over towards where those people that followed us.

They probably also noticed me, so they all went out from their various hiding places before flying upwards the sky.

"Just mages, I guess?"

"A kid? A kid that can fly?"

"This is bad, he might be the one that defeated the calamity from earlier."

"No, I'm sure of it but the clothes are different. This one also has a partially brown hair compared to the black-haired boy you're referring to."

"He has an orb that's following around him... is he actually a demon?"

They started a conversation between themselves and I could audibly hear them at this distance of fifty meters. Some of their words are a bit hushed and I couldn't understand them anymore so I gradually closed the distance before talking.

"Are you done talking?"

One of them drew a dagger from behind his back and the others followed. I'm not sure if he's the leader but they all look alike from the identical ninja-looking hooded robes they wore. All of them wore clothing that wrapped up their whole body in brown, though and not black. It must be the most commonly used camouflage color here because of the climate of the place.

I brought out my white Origin Blade and put it on my right hand, and gathered a few red Origin on my left. I want to test a few things.

The red wisps of light kept converging and they didn't delay as they started to attack.

One of them met me head on, and I casually deflected the incoming slash.

*kshhh*

A weird sound happened upon impact, and I felt that my blade didn't break his knife, which was probably made up in a magical construct.

"He's no demon. My anti-demon enchantment didn't work."

The others kept swarming around me in different patterns, and finally my red Origin Blade finally finished condensing. Releasing my Soul Control, I grasped everyone's general location within a radius of a hundred kilometers, and it felt like they were doing some kind of net encirclement, as if they were forming the lines of a rattan ball.

It was quite creative, and their formation meant that they could attack and retreat as they go, alternating even.

The next attack came, and there were two of them. One in front and one above at my left behind side. Once again I parried their attacks, but the one behind me went partially through my blade before his weapon dispersed and vanished.

"The general anti-magic enchantments work, use that!"

I can't even see how they were doing enchantments on their weapons, but I could feel that there were some kind of changes occurring within the air.

Strangely, Origin was somehow seeping out from my body, and I could visibly see the base azure color of my Origin wafting outwards.

"What is he?"

"Nevermind that, just attack!"

This time three of them attacked from different places, and I parried two while the other one hit me on the back which pushed me a little bit. It also stung a bit which made me reflexively close an eye. I could have dodged it but I knew that my body has an innate layer of Origin which could make me resist most magical attacks below the red level.

"Does he have an inner armor? Keep going."

"It doesn't fell like I've hit an inner armor..."

The red blade I had from earlier had more cuts right now, and I Just kept pouring Origin towards it, and the color was already starting to change into white but I forcefully repressed it somehow and it returned to red.

"Oh, it succeeded!"

I've been having this theory that the quality would increase because of the quantity, but now that I've been able to repress it into only red, it might be possible that I had changed something. This was the change that I was trying to do.

The next cycle of attacks came, and there were four of them. Well, the pattern is predictable, so I deflected the other two and pushed them backwards before flinging their weapons, before blocking the other two. This time I moved away from my spot but I was still within their spherical formation.

"He blocked both. He must have received damage."

I'm not sure which is whom from their identities, but it doesn't matter. This time I tried to repress the change of quality as I pour more of the red Origin before their attacks come.

It didn't take a long time for their next attack came, and they all converged at the same time.

Damned predictable, whoever said that must have been lenient..... and that's me.

Since my ideas worked and everything went according to plan except for their advanced assault, I returned my white Origin Blade on its sheathe and willed the red blade in front of me.

All of their strikes were in a stab form instead of slash this time, so I also didn't delay.

"Forlorn's Alike."

The red blade started to multiply within the red blade, before it flew towards the seven of them. Afterwards, a large red beam of light went towards the skies and expanded for a few meters around me, enveloping even all of the attackers.

Later on, a large sword formed above my head, and the light wall disappeared, revealing the seven all around me who were stopped just a few inches from stabbing me. All of their robes were partially torn, and I could even see one of them who was a female.

"Demon... It's a demon!"

"KILL!"

Before they could even resume their attack, the blade of light rained thin red streaks of light and pierced their chests, heading straight towards their source spirit, and made them fall like flies that got electrocuted.

One of them got to resist though, and he was having difficulty breathing because of the direct strike to the chest.

"What are you..... Meltor? You look a lot like Meltor!"

"Huh? You know my father?"

"So you're his son..... that... explains every..."

He hadn't even finished his sentence but he started to fall down along with the others too, but it's good that he's alive so that I can ask him questions later.

Before he hit the ground, I matched his falling speed before slowing down and held him by the armpit as I carried him inside a white box barrier of Origin.

I flew towards further south after that and looked for the others.

...

***

He had this urge to help the boy Kaff and display his own powers in front of him, but seeing how he casually deflected a short blade's strike, he tried to hold back and watched how Kaff fought instead.

His master told him that he was an interesting fellow after all, so he decided to observe for now.

The seven people that attacked him are all above the average ----- which he had experienced encountering and he thought that Kaff might have problems if he became lenient.

After a while, he felt him use a power that's similar to what they use for tracking other people, but the way Kaff used it to surround himself and his enemies in combat was only fairly beginner level in his thoughts. Kaff doesn't use it yet for attacks and only for sensing as utility right now.

The boy was curious why Kaff kept filling up his weaker sword with so much power that it would gradually fill up and reach a higher level, so he waited and kept watching what would happen.

Kaff's ability to block attacks looked very crude and has less technique, but everything he made was mostly probably from experience, is what the boy thought.

The battle passed and finally all the seven assassins went for an all out attack by converging towards Kaff, but he didn't expect that he would keep the stronger sword that he used, and deployed the weaker looking red sword in front of him.

The boy was about to go towards him but was stopped in his tracks as a brilliant red light flared upwards toward the heavens, even going through the clouds and gradually disappeared.

"That attack..."

A large red sword appeared above Kaff, and the boy closed his eyes before following towards Arc and the others. His priority was the infant, after all.

"I still want to check out what he could do with that blade but the battle is finally at its end. The baby is also slightly going out of my range too, so it's time to leave."

A blue light dashed towards the distance as Kaff also went towards the same direction.

...

Meanwhile, somewhere more than a hundred, if not less than a thousand kilometers away...

...

"Finally."

Yona was within a place that were all composed of various tall mountain peaks which towered above the clouds themselves. The bottom could not be seen and one could fall to their own death from a single mistake.

It was the main reason why only the people that came to this place were those who had the ability to at least fly.

"A visitor."

A deep voice with a hint of age sounded out from the highest mountain peak at the distance and reached Yona.

Right after the sound wave went past her, a golden light with few hints of black suddenly erupted from that mountain peak and became thicker as it went closer towards her.

Yona responded by gathering a combination of four types of energy from her four cardinal directions: up, down, left, and right; and converged those four within a single point in front of her, creating a colorless magical circle.

The golden beam of light that was accompanied by black wriggling substances finally reached a few meters in front of her and met the circle that Yona made.

*pzzzht...*

A fizzing sound occurred and all of the force got absorbed by the colorless circle until everything disappeared, before a more larger beam of light went out from the circle and came crashing towards where it came from.

From the distance, a small sparkle could be seen before a large explosion enveloped the whole mountain peak, vanishing into nothing. Winds blew towards everywhere and disturbed the peace the mountain peaks had. Clouds even parted, temporarily revealing the dark abyss below which no one had ever reached the bottom, before it got covered once more after a few seconds.

"The little girl back then has grown up into an adult, I see!"

Hearing that voice, Yona clicked her tongue and became a beam of light, going away from the mountain peak. She disappeared on the horizon after only a few seconds, and there was peace on the vicinity once again.

"Such a shy girl."

A tall old man was now floating above where she had been and squinted his eyes as he glanced over where Yona had gone to.

He had a weird hat over his head, and currently there were six golden orbs of light that orbited around his whole body.

There were black dots sporadically scattered all over his body that squirmed from time to time. His height was about between six to seven feet tall, and his body was as thin as a baseball bat's handle.

Every bone on his body was already visible yet his eyes still had this vigor that opposed his actual age.

"She barely reached my level yet she went all out on that one attack. Oh boy, do I get excited from having a fun battle soon!"

His wide smile revealed more wrinkles that indicated the old age he has, and the way it even thinned out his eyes looked sinister as if there was a hidden motive behind his grin.

He waved a hand and an hourglass suddenly appeared out of nowhere and floated in front of him.

"I'll have to look for another peak as she destroyed that one."

The hourglass was also almost half empty as the sand continued to fall towards the lower end.

"Oh? It seems she's trying to deplete my other sources....."

His eyes wandered towards the distance and he glanced in different directions before widely grinning from ear to ear once more.

"It's time to harvest more sources."