Spirit Soul

23 Minutes…

Kyle didn't expect the countdown to reach such a low time.

After all, he didn't really feel as if a lot of time had passed while he was debating with himself about killing.

Only he had been dealing with an internal struggle as the mindset of the Old Kyle and the new Kyle had clashed, at a very inconvenient time at that.

He was still struggling with the mental issues that had occurred at the worst possible time.

However, after some time had passed, he figured that he was not only fine with killing but also that it would be a spontaneous decision whether he would kill someone or not.

Kyle was not one of the ruthless killers, who could kill for no reason or just because he derived some sick pleasure from it.

But by adding the factor of a 'reason' and a 'use' he could get from killing someone, every single living being was beneficial for him.

After all, he would gain the Soul energy of the deceased.

In the end, they could even reincarnate, which meant that he didn't end the entire existence of the beings he killed.

'Why am I suddenly struggling so much? It is not like anyone else would bother about this… Wasn't it already nice of me to save Alice, the Nasga, and knock out the other injured and exhausted Cultivators instead of killing them?'

Shaking his head, Kyle continued to advance through the open area of the Sadorla forest's center.

Many Cultivators had taken notice of him, but only the Aeroa, Kandras, Myda, and now even the Aldra were paying attention to him, observing every single move of his.

Their eyes gleamed with the intention to kill him, just for the sake of snatching the mutated Licara flower away from him.

This was something Kyle had already sensed before.

But this time, he couldn't help but curse his old, and rather peaceful self at this sight.

'And you want me to spare those fucking idiots?! I'm not even sure if I can survive irrespective of whether I try to kill them or not…'

The internal conflict was driving him insane and it was almost as if his old and new selves were fighting for the right to control him.

It felt extremely weird as his head began to ache heavily.

On the other hand, a group of Myda reached him from the front, while several Kandras were behind.

The Aeroa above once again diverted their attention on him, bombarding him with their wind-based attacks.

This was quite bothersome.

However, it also allowed Kyle to move far faster and with fewer mistakes than what he would usually make.

His wasted movements could barely be considered as such as he shot through the steady downpour of wind blades, spears, needles, and balls raining down on him.

Some of the needles that were, by far, the fastest attacks that reached him, pierced through the layers of wind that enveloped him.

Following that, they reached his clothes, piercing through his armor as if it was made of silk.

Penetrating his skin without any resistance, they managed to scratch him before Kyle had already moved ahead.

Superficial cuts covered his entire body. They would have been more than enough to spread over his entire body, causing him to lose enough blood to die of blood loss.

However, what made his opponents be flabbergasted that Kyle's robe looked the same black color and there were no fountains of red gushing out of his body.

Instead, the number of holes was the only thing that changed.

It reached the state at which Kyle had to let go of his robe, revealing his upper body to the others.

Earlier, he had only exposed himself to some extent, which was now gradually changing.

When his opponents' eyes fell on his toned and perfectly trained body, it was clearly visible that he race was either an Aldra, due to a striking resemblance to them, or a demihuman with a low purity of beast blood coursing through his body.

This made him gain more attention once again.

Kyle didn't feel all that great with the loss of his robe.

Everyone could see that the cuts he had sustained were quickly healing, which caused everybody to be even more curious about him.

It had not been his plan to expose the Nurture ability to others, but given the fact that his entire upper body was riddled with shallow cuts, Kyle had to do something.

A few cuts were not the problem, but they reached the hundreds after just a mere minute.

This forced him to react and tend to them before the superficial injuries would transform into lethal wounds.

Thus, he pushed himself inside the crowd of Myda ahead and started to brandish the Starbreaker katana.

Determined to survive, Kyle also forced himself to attack mercilessly.

He could clearly sense that the others would tear him apart if he didn't do so.

As such, not even his old, placid self was able to suppress or confuse him.

'If you didn't want me to kill, you should have come up with something better, when I reincarnated!' Kyle told himself, trying to reach his old self.

Somehow, Kyle felt ridiculous and a bit crazy while talking to himself as if he had a split personality.

In fact, one could say that it was something similar, with the sole difference being that he had only one personality, under the influence of two completely different periods of time.

One was rather placid, and impart the knowledge and wisdom to others to help them survive, while the other one was not a mere bystander but someone who dirtied his hands, killed, and knew the laws of the jungle very well!

Getting his act together, Kyle's eyes grew eerily cold as he allowed himself to slowly abandon the cowardly and ridiculous mindset of his past.

By releasing more wind currents, Kyle used them to forcefully avert the trajectory of some attacks that would have cut him in half at any moment.

While facing opponents that wielded four weapons at once, he could only give his best.

This included the use of his wind affinity, in order to reach a speed and momentum that was higher than his opponent's.

Kyle was able to achieve this, but owing to the numerical disadvantage he faced, Arashi was forced to start helping actively.

The high Soul force replenishing speed his Spirit Soul caused was not enough for Kyle to overwhelm his opponents at hand.

Too many attacks reached him at once, forcing Kyle to twist his body in uncomfortable angles, only to start a race of sorts through the rows of Myda that made him feel like his body was tearing apart.

He was not cut in half, or even once hit by the Myda.

However, their blazing hands increased the temperature of the surroundings.

This made it far more difficult for Kyle to control the wind currents he had manifested.

Too many weird things were happening, and he even noticed that the Aeroas' attack from the air grew weaker as the surrounding's temperature gradually increased.

Kyle had never faced something like this, giving him the feel as if the Myda were far stronger than he credited them for.

'Is that some sort of an Anti-magic effect?'

It was not unsure whether his thought was correct or not.

But what he clearly understood was that his wind currents were still far stronger than the attacks of the group of Aeroa.

This gave him the intel that the surrounding mana must have been affected.

To Kyle's fortune, he was able to exert and utilize his wind affinity without any hiccups as he was using Soul force, and not mana.

Only one of his cultivation energy's components was mana, and even then, it was transmuted and changed.

It made him smile slightly the moment he noticed the astonished faces of the Myda all around him.

They didn't expect him to be able to maintain his control over the surrounding winds.

But rather than becoming weaker, it almost seemed as if Kyle was becoming stronger the more time passed.

If they were to know that Arashi was actively supporting him, they would be truly flabbergasted.

After all, the three newly arrived races had yet to encounter Arashi, let alone understand the mysterious individual named Kyle.

Understanding Kyle was, by far, the most difficult.

It was already shocking and completely unexpected for them to witness that the shallow scratches all over his body were healing at a rapid pace.

In the end, it made them believe that Kyle had a trait or constitution that allowed him to recuperate at a rapid pace.

After realizing this, they didn't even try to inflict light injuries or simply overwhelm them.

Instead, they wanted to cause lethal wounds that would kill Kyle in an instance, preventing him from being able to retaliate at all.

Kyle figured that the way in which he was attacked changed, and it caused chills to run down his back.

He was already drenched in a cold sweat that made his shirt stick to his torso, but he was now fending off far more lethal attacks that aimed at his vital spots.

This forced him and Arashi to up their game as they released even more wind currents.

His entire body was tightly enveloped by highly compressed wind currents that allowed him to speed up even further.

Evading the attacks being bombarded on him from all sides, he lashed out with the Starbreaker katana once in a while.

This was enough to cause a little bloody feast, leading to the death of many beings around him.

Piercing through the chest of some Myda, and even a few individuals of the Kandras race that had jumped into the fray, Kyle was able to devour the Soul energy of some beings he had killed.

After devouring the Soul energy of the other Cultivators that had died, Kyle's entire body was brimming with force.

And to get the Soul energy of others it was not even necessary if the others died by the hands of others, which was the most helpful.

This made him think that he should just resort to using the devouring tree seedling's spores once again.

A faint glint of joy and determination emerged in his emerald eyes as he attacked with more fervor.

Simultaneously, he empowered his Nurture ability with the Soul particles that flooded his body.

Soul particles and the Soul energy had the same origin and the only difference between them was the fact that the Soul energy was the intact energy of depraved souls, while Soul particles was the intact Soul energy that had been further disintegrated into countless particles.

A moment later, Kyle utilized the Nurture ability, nourishing the spores' path of the devouring tree seedling before he got a crazy idea.

"Ten minutes…I guess that will have to work!!"

Understanding that his countdown was nearing its end and not much time was left behind, Kyle placed all his bets on his next move.

Utilizing the Soul energy of several hundred beasts that were stronger than him, he empowered the Nurture ability, flooding it at once.

'All-in, it is!'

Gritting his teeth, Kyle understood that it was now or never.

Nearly every single Cultivator in his surroundings was charging in his direction.

They wanted to prevent him from being able to survive the next ten minutes, and leave the dome with one of the few limited mutated Licara flower seeds.

He had to survive at all costs, and the only way in order to achieve this without being dead-tired, and face near death experience owing to countless injuries seemed to be the devouring tree seedlings' spores!

As he was cut and sliced at several times, over and over again, Kyle could barely make use of the Nurture ability to tend to himself.

Thus, to prevent being affected by the spores as they were released, Kyle had to use the wind affinity.

Not a single spore was supposed to enter his body, not again!

Nonetheless, the wind currents that enveloped Kyle tightly, and acted as a second layer, obstructed the spores of the devouring tree seedling to be released.

They accumulated within the tiny space that was left between his body and the layer of wind currents around him.

However, that was exactly what Kyle had planned as he allowed the spores to accumulate close to him.

Only when the devouring tree seedling had accumulated more than enough spores to burst open the tight layer of wind currents did Kyle release everything at once.

Masses of spores were released in an explosive manner, and Kyle further used his wind affinity to control the surrounding winds to carry the spores throughout the battlefield.

Supporting him actively, Arashi took charge of the wind currents, filling the entire space within the dome with spores in no time.

However, even then, the masses of spores the devouring tree seedling released, never ceased and continued to emerge and spread further.

This caused Kyle to frown as merely a minute had passed when everyone collapsed on the ground, affected by all of the different spores that had been released.

'Maybe…I overdid it with the nourishment…'