Chapter 375

He lowered his natural defenses just a bit. He wanted to see how this fog affected his body and what its purpose was. The moment he did, he was able to feel the fog seep into his skin, deep into his pores. Then it began to eat away at his mana. It even started to try and eat away at his aura, though that was much harder for it to accomplish. The second it touched his ruinous aura, it was eviscerated without leaving a trace behind.

With that being said, he still felt some of its effects. When the fog seeped into his skin, it started to affect his physical senses. His eyesight began to blur, and even his ears and nose started to numb in a disturbing way. 

He shook his head, trying to clear it, but he was unable to. Realizing that this fog was dangerous, he reactivated his defenses and used [Phoenix Renewal] to clear the fog out of his system. Thankfully, this was very easy, and the fog stood no chance against his healing skill.

He could not even begin to imagine how debilitating this fog could be to someone without a skill like Julius or something that could prevent it from affecting them. It was very insidious and he was glad that this was a Tier 3 rift. He had a feeling that if it was a Tier 4 rift, he might have had much more trouble dealing with it.

Of course, he still had [Absolute Spatial Perception], but losing the rest of his senses wasn’t a pleasant experience. He did some more tests. He used some aura and attempted to blow the fog away. 

It actually had more of an effect than he expected it to have. His aura, whether it was because of its ruinous effects or the mere fact that it was more powerful than this fog, wiped away all of the fog it managed to touch. 

It also ascertained that this fog was easy to remove, but the problem was that there was so much of it. The entire floor was covered with it. He doubted he had enough aura to even make a dent in all of this fog.

However, what he disliked about this fog the most was that it directly affected his own mana manipulation. It was slight, but it was enough to be noticeable. More importantly, it was very annoying. 

He didn’t like it when anyone or anything came in the way of his mana and how he used it. His mana was his own, and the mere thought of something interrupting this made him angry. 

He had a plan to deal with this, though. He closed his eyes to concentrate and activated [Pyrokinetic Embodiment of Ruin]. He did this because this skill was the primary source of the ruinous effect of his aura and he was hoping to use it to help what he had planned.

He took control of his aura and created a bubble around himself. This was actually easier than he expected and was very similar to how he shrouded his own aura. The difference was that he was extending the distance of the shroud. Since he chose to do this, his aura inevitably started to do its ruinous thing. However, it was exactly what he wanted since his aura was viciously tearing through the fog before it could touch him.

Because of this, the fog’s effects couldn’t touch or get near him. This meant the fog no longer influenced his mana manipulation, something he was very happy to see.

He took his time getting used to maintaining this aura shield, and as he was, he thought about what he had heard from Ashton. According to the man, the furthest a person had reached was the eighth floor. At first, Julius didn’t think this to be a significant accomplishment. 

However, he knew better now. The last floor was already pretty tough, considering that it was the second floor. This floor, he believed, was much more dangerous simply because of the fog. He had severely underestimated the difficulty of this rift. He had come here expecting to clear it without much trouble.

After all, he had defeated multiple Tier 4s at this point. What was a meager Tier 3 rift in comparison?

He was glad to be proven wrong. This meant that he would find some excitement in this rift. He just hoped that the others didn’t find themselves in danger. He knew that they were talented, but he also knew that they didn’t have the diverse skill set like he did. Perhaps, Derek and maybe Aubrey were the only ones.

It was only once he felt comfortable that he continued on his way through the forest. He knew that the notification never mentioned anything about monsters or threats, but that didn’t mean he wouldn't encounter any. The only condition was to find a way out, which was pretty nondescript.

That was why he kept a lookout for anything that might be a threat. After almost half an hour, he hadn’t come across anything and began to think he would not have to fight any monsters in this fog. There was a good chance that this fog was the challenge of the floor. 

It was certainly powerful enough to be considered the main danger.

In hindsight, there was a good chance that this was a secondary effect of the floor or the fog. However, he was glad that his perception skill still worked because it allowed him to dodge the sudden attack with just enough time to spare. He used [Void Step] to evade the strike and sent out a burst of kinetic energy in the direction from which he had been assaulted.

He didn’t sense anything, though. Like a ghost, whoever or whatever attacked him had disappeared back into the fog like nothing had happened. 

Another several minutes went by without another attack. However, now that he knew something was out there in the fog, he didn’t feel stupid for his earlier wariness. Just as he was going to lower his guard for a moment, he sensed it again.

However, now that he knew what to look for, he got a better look. From what he could see, it was a pale white and slightly translucent creature almost exactly like a ghost or some kind of wraith. It was fast, but he barely managed to spot the creature appear in the fog, almost like it was coalescing out of the fog itself. 

Because he detected it early enough, he was able to release a blast of kinetic energy at it before it could attack him. Unfortunately, he saw his attack go right through this creature without a single sign of damage.

However, this seemed to scare it off before it could make another attack against him. It was fast and he had a feeling that it had some kind of skill that was equally as insidious as the fog, but it was too soon to say.

He couldn’t say he was surprised that his attack missed. If it was indeed anything like a ghost, he doubted a physical attack would be able to beat it so easily. He deflated slightly.

There went his plans to primarily use kinetic energy throughout this rift. It would seem that he would need to resort to other methods. Luckily, he already had a good idea of what he needed to do. He had already used a similar attack when he dealt with that assassin who had the intangibility skill. 

As fate would have it, his aura was really good at these types of conflicts. It was why he grinned as he waited for the monster to make another move against him. Luckily for him, that time came much sooner than the last time. Perhaps the monster felt emboldened when it saw that Julius couldn’t hurt it, but the next time it showed up, he saw it confidently dash toward him quickly.

He was barely able to track the pale figure with his eyes, but with his perception skill, he didn’t need to. Once it was close enough, he activated his aura and molded it into a cage. He also added his kinetic energy, much like he did for his restriction technique, and it worked much better than he expected.

He had mainly done this out of curiosity and hadn’t expected much, but it would seem that even though his regular blasts of kinetic energy weren’t able to hit, his restriction technique was able to. It didn’t stop it in place, but it was a good medium to use if he wanted to extend his aura to far away targets. 

The ease with which he accomplished this likely had to do with the technique's reliance on a battle of willpower and aura, but he was still happy. 

He surrounded the wraith without much trouble and effectively stunned it in place. His aura was already eating away at it, actually doing some damage, unlike his blast of kinetic energy. He sensed its panic and before Julius could crush it with his aura, it broke through his technique and dashed toward him. It must have decided that it needed to close the distance to stop him. A good decision, if not for Julius expecting it. 

He smiled at the wraith as it slashed its long, sharp claws at him and blocked it with his forearm. However, he widened his eyes and tilted his head with intrigue as the claws ripped through the mana barrier he placed around his skin like paper. Nothing had been able to tear through his barrier with such ease before. Not even a Tier 4.

He felt its aura seep into his skin and tried to do something to his mana, but his aura took care of it. It wiped out the external aura and he used [Phoenix Renewal] to heal his arm. 

He didn’t get worried though. It was hard to feel that way, after all, his heart raced in excitement upon seeing such a technique. He was very curious about how it managed to do that and his own worries of his health took a back seat for a moment. 

He quickly decided that there was no need to finish off this creature right away and he eased off his aura containment, allowing the wraith to run away once again.

It looked like the wraith misunderstood Julius’s intentions and believed that he was unable to keep it restricted because it didn’t go very far. It backed off, but it was just far enough away from the shield of aura he created to block the fog that it wasn’t affected by it. 

Then, after a brief moment, it attacked him again. This time, much less worried about Julius’s attacks. It would appear that the wraith had become confident that Julius wasn’t able to really hurt it.

Its sharp claws swung for him again, and once again, he created his normal barrier of mana around his arm to block. Just like the last time, he watched as the claws tore through without issue. His arm was sliced through, and the monster swung again, this time aiming for his face. He leaned back but was still nicked in the chin. 

He backed up using [Void Step], but the wraith was back on top of him swiftly. It continued to slash away at him. Julius sent a few blasts of kinetic energy that had his aura infused at the beast, just to keep it honest. However, it didn’t seem to care that much about protecting itself from it.

It was much more keen on killing Julius in as little time as possible. He was fine with that. He used this time to examine the claws with wide eyes. He didn’t want to waste a single moment of this precious experience. 

He was so distracted that he started to forget to heal his wounds entirely. Despite this, each attack he was subjected to brought him closer to understanding this technique and for the first time in a long while, he truly lost himself in a fight. He didn't even notice when he began to laugh like a madman.