Chapter 50: Energy of spirit
Ford’s chest rose and fell as he struggled to open his mutilated mouth. However, it was already distorted by dozens of Carl’s punches at the start of the torture, so his words came out almost incompletely.
"Y-You t-trash... Y-you..."
Carl shook his head and gave a light shrug.
"I know... You will say: ’’You never have it’’ right?."
Carl’s eyes rolled for a moment before turning razor-sharp. In an instant, he thrust his talons into Ford’s mouth, and half a second later, with a swift motion, half of Ford’s jaw was already in Carl’s palm.
"So, you don’t need it anymore."
Carl flicked his claws and tossed the mutilated jaw aside. Now, no more yelling — Ford had lost the part of his mouth needed to scream. Yet, Carl could still hear faint groans escaping from him.
"Now, it’s your turn, guys."
Carl made a few motions with his fingers and pulled Varge and Berry toward him. At this point, they barely showed any hostility — only pure fear.
"I hope you’re smart enough to understand what I’m saying."
He looked at them coldly and raised his voice, making even Earth and Slater start to shiver at Carl’s inhuman actions.
"Understand?"
"I-I understood..."
Varge stammered, trembling, while Berry barely reacted. Yep, it was understandable — her severed feet were bleeding too much. She wouldn’t last more than a few minutes.
Carl clicked his tongue, activated his [Flame Breath] and [Soul-Devouring Flame] skills, and unleashed the two flames, overlapping, straight at Berry.
[System]: Target offered no resistance.
[System]: Soul Devoured: 20%
[System]: Soul Devoured: 40%
[System]: Soul Devoured: 60%
[System]: Soul Devoured: 80%
[System]: Soul Devoured: 100%
[Soul Rank]: ★★ Dragon (Progress: 32%->36%)
Carl let out a short flame, glanced at the ash-blackened corpse, then let it fall. He turned his attention to Varge, who was the most terrified and trembling.
He faltered.
"Y-You... will you s-spare me if I say everything?"
Carl scoffed and rubbed his forehead for a moment. Finally he spoke.
"No!"
"However... I’m a good person. I won’t torment you if you say... or do you want to go on an exciting journey like... him?"
Carl pointed at Ford and chuckled.
Hearing those merciless words, Varge nearly broke down. After a few seconds he managed to speak.
"Lord Marsh gave us a mission to find your weakness and he wanted a deathmatch with you. But he couldn’t wait, so we captured and bullied your friends to force you to send your challenge to him."
Carl rubbed his chin and nodded.
"You just wasted your lives — I’ll send my offer sooner or later."
Carl had planned to challenge Marsh to kick him out of the student council, but he hadn’t expected Marsh to demand a deathmatch. Marsh seemed confident he could kill Carl even before Carl had seriously hurt him.
"What an idiot... lucky for me. I’m gonna kill him myself."
Carl scoffed, triggered his skill, and decided he’d kill Ford and Varge right now — they were of no use to him anymore.
[Flame Breath activated!]
[Soul-Devouring Flame activated!]
The deafening scream began to echo again.
[System]: Target offered no resistance.
[System]: Soul Devoured: 20%
...
[System]: Soul Devoured: 60%
...
[System]: Soul Devoured: 80%
...
[System]: Soul Devoured: 100%
[Soul Rank]: ★★ Dragon (Progress: 32%->44%)
’’So delicious. Thank you for your meal, Marsh. Next time, you’ll share the same fate as your subordinates.’’
The three-star dragon soul had really boosted his progress significantly. Each one gave him an extra 4 percent increase, so he needed about fifteen people like that to rank up two-star dragon souls. If that happened, he believed he could defeat Marsh even if he was still one star below.
Carl licked his lips, composed himself, and turned his attention back to Earth and Slater.
’’Are you alright now?’’
Earth flinched for a moment before answering awkwardly. Carl’s previous actions had honestly scared him.
’’Yeah... Thank you for the healing potions. I’m really grateful for that.’’
In contrast, Slater looked at Carl with admiration, even kneeling down to express her gratitude. To her, Carl was no less than a divine protector — maybe even above one.
His eyes flickered for a moment, and he sighed. He intended to say something to her, but quickly gave up — he didn’t want to deal with his wife’s jealousy later.
Just as Carl made a small move, Earth stammered, his voice uncertain.
’’W-What kind of fighting style was that? It—it’s... thread?’’
Carl raised an eyebrow in amusement while rubbing Cobb’s chin.
’’Excellent. You’re smarter than those trash I’ve killed.’’
Carl let Cobb perch on his shoulder and moved his fingers for a while. After that, a stone dropped into his palm from midair, and the faint outline of threads slowly appeared around it, coiling tightly around the stone.
’’That’s my new skill. I’ve trained it for years, but for some reason, I thought it was time to show it off. Anyway, I only use it once I’ve practically mastered it... You know, it’s really hard to control.’’
Earth’s jaw dropped in shock as he stammered,
’’You mean... that’s the fighting style of the Strike Class — Mana Thread!’’
Carl nodded.
’’You’re right. It’s a technique that lets a user release their mana as threads and spread them all over their range, creating a domain of their own.’’
’’Just imagine — I can turn those invisible and intangible mana threads into something real, as sharp and hard as anything, strong enough to cut through everything.’’
Earth looked at Carl with awe in his eyes.
’’But... How can you control it so easily? I can’t even imagine managing tons of threads and turning them tangible whenever you want.’’
’’Nah,’’ Carl shook his head. ’’More accurately, I use a certain kind of energy to control them — as if they were a part of my own body.’’
Indeed, Carl could never control such a ridiculous number of mana threads with just a few hand motions. The human brain simply didn’t have the capacity for that. Because of this, the Strike Class had developed a new method to deal with the issue.
’’I use the energy of my spirit.’’
...
’’Energy of spirit?’’ Earth scratched his head in confusion.
Carl nodded.
’’Yep. It’s a kind of energy similar to the one that comes from the body’s flesh. But it drains my spirit energy a lot.’’
He added, ’’Right now, my limit is only about ten minutes of use.’’
Finally, Carl proactively finished a short discussion and led both of them back to the academy without any troubles.
***
The large, luxurious room was decorated with a lot of jewelry and some paintings. In the middle of that room, a young man was sitting, reading a book, focused.
Suddenly, a breeze from the window lightly opened the door. Then a voice rang out from the room.
’My Lord, three of them died.’
Marsh frowned in discomfort and slowly lifted his tough head.
’Who did?’
The shadowy figure answered politely.
’Heir of the Ryan family, Carl Ryan.’
Marsh showed a bit of astonishment, then sighed and gestured for his butler to report everything.
Around ten minutes later.
’You mean he’s reached Rank E, and then even used one of the unique techniques of the Strike class? So, if that’s true, killing three of those pieces of trash is understandable.’
Marsh rubbed his chin and asked, ’Any other info?’
The butler nodded and answered, ’His limit for controlling the mana thread is ten minutes; however, there’s one thing.’
Marsh raised an eyebrow and gestured for his butler to continue.
The butler nodded and said, ’He seemed to be lying.’
Marsh rubbed his chin and said, ’What do you mean? Why did he lie about it? unless...He could sense your existence even when you’d hidden in the shadows?..Then try to deceive you to make an advantage when he challenge me?’’
Marsh had already known it ever since Carl arrived with the council students. Carl would definitely challenge him someday. Because of that, Marsh had ordered his subordinates to find Carl’s weakness and make Carl challenge him without any preparation.
Indeed, one of the mighty dragons could not challenge anyone in the academy and had to accept any challenge later — it was hard to do.
The butler shook his head lightly. ’It’s ridiculous. With his current rank it’s practically impossible. Although, I didn’t know what he was thinking. But, from what I sensed, his actual limit is thirty minutes.’
Marsh grimaced. ’What? Thirty minutes? Did you sense it wrong? ...There’s no way. I used to fight some bastards from the genius Strike class — none of them had a limit like that.’
The envy began to be written on his face as thinking about the achievement that Carl had gained. He was a bit suspicious about his ability because he supposed he himself was one called genius not Carl.
He judged that Carl used a bit of a cheat for himself.
’And, come to think of it, how could he find a way to rank up and even learn a Strike-class technique?’ he added. ’I think he might be involved with the Strike class.’
However, he quickly sighed and dismissed the thought. ’Forget it. I’ll kill him anyway for what he did.’