The Armored Knight behind Mr. Klein was a unique existence. Its entire body was white, and it was semi-transparent, allowing Michael and the others to see through it. Yet, its body seemed solid, except for the parts of the Armored Knight, which Mr. Klein could change to gaseous form at will with precise commands.
Manifestation-type Soultraits were rare, and they were hard to control. However, upon learning to control them precisely such Soultraits would grow extremely powerful – possibly rivaling the power and efficiency of Soultraits of a higher rank.
Michael wasn’t really fazed by the Armored Knight. His entire body was engulfed in a six-fold Enhanced Extraction field that was precisely aimed at the connection between the Soul Manifested Armored Knight and Mr. Klein. Michael’s origin energy was drained quickly but Mr. Klein lost control of the Armored Knight in exchange. This exchange was clearly in Michael’s favor.
His entire focus was on Mr. Klein as the Wyverntooth Spear manifested in front of him.
Michael grasped the spear and engulfed it in several layers of Enhancement before he did the same to the Legendary Ring Artifact. Afterward, he swallowed a few energy pills before kicking the ground beneath him to dash forward.
Michael’s body turned into a blur as he accelerated rapidly. He thrust the Wyverntooth Spear toward Mr. Klein’s shoulder while using a many-fold enhanced Spirit Whip to lash out at his teacher.
Not expecting a mental attack to strike him down, Mr. Klein’s expression changed. The smile on his face was wiped away, replaced by a deep frown. Unable to control the Armored Knight, Mr. Klein was forced to move aside. He evaded Michael’s thrust, only to realize too late that the field of extraction around Michael began to affect him.
Mr. Klein’s clothes were removed layer by layer, only for the hair all over his body to follow suit.
Michael could instinctively tell that his Extraction wouldn’t be strong enough to gouge Mr. Klein’s eye out. He was only a Tier-2 Lord, while Mr. Klein was a proficient Tier-3 Adventurer. Even Spirit Whip hadn’t been powerful, given that Mr. Klein’s mind and soul had been refined several times. But extracting Mr. Klein’s clothes and hair was already enough to rattle him. Once Mr. Klein realized that he was naked and that his body looked like that of a humongous baby – without a single strand of hair –, he would be affected mentally.
It didn’t take Mr. Klein long before he realized that he was magically stripped off by his student. He wanted to do something against it, but he couldn’t afford to unleash his origin energy outside the body. That would consume too much energy and even more focus, which was required to regain control of the Armored Knight and to keep it manifested.
The Armored Knight didn’t stop moving even after its connection with Mr. Klein was disrupted. It was not wholly sentient, but fiercely loyal so it could follow orders and move swiftly – even if it was weak. The self-consciousness was just enough to know that it was part of Mr. Klein’s being and that Mr. Klein’s death would mean it would perish as well. All enemies of Mr. Klein were thus also the Armored Knight’s enemies!𝑛𝑜𝗏𝖊𝒍𝓝𝖾xt.𝗇𝓔t
The Armored Knight lifted its sword and charged at Michael. It was fast, much faster than most Tier-2 Monsters. Michael guessed that the Armored Knight was at the Peak of the 2nd Tier, missing only a little push to cross the barrier separating the Tiers. Right now, that was Michael’s great fortune.
Dealing with a single Tier-3 Adventurer was already cumbersome for someone like Michael. However, dealing with a Tier-3 Adventurer who was fighting alongside a manifested Soul at the 3rd Tier was near-impossible without suicidal tactics such as throwing Chaos Pills all over the battlefield.
Michael ducked his head, avoiding the horizontal sword slash that would have most likely beheaded him. As he ducked, he could see the Armored Knight’s knee shooting upward, ready to bash his head with tremendous force. Luckily, Michael reacted just in time. With Eagle Eyes fully unleashed it hadn’t been too difficult to predict the Armored Knight’s move. Michael could have evaded the attack but he didn’t have any time to spare.
He was unsure how much time he had until the authorities would show up, and Michael had yet to get hold of the information he wanted to know. Michael didn’t even know how long it would take to extract a conscious being’s memories, and how helpful Mind Reader would be against an enemy of a higher Tier.
Given those unknown factors, Michael manifested several Sword Qi blades that had been further enhanced by Enhancement. The Sword Qi blades shot toward the leg that was about to smash into Michael’s face.
And just before Michael’s face could be mashed and broken into pieces, enhanced Sword Qi blades cut through the air. They impacted one after another, aiming precisely at the same area; the joint.
Michael twisted his body to ensure that the Armored Knight couldn’t target him immediately. Simultaneously, his field of extraction compressed into a huge stream. The stream of extraction flooded the Armored Knight, precisely the joint that had been cut by several enhanced Sword Qi blades. The blades hadn’t been powerful enough to cut through the Armored Knight’s leg, but that was also fine.
Michael compressed the field of extraction and forcefully intruded the Armored Knight’s body through the joint. He began extracting the Armored Knight’s energy thereafter.
The Armored Knight had its own energy storage, but it had a much smaller storage capacity than most other beings. It was merely a manifestation-type Soultrait with restricted prowess, after all. But while its storage capacity was low, and just enough to maintain its solid form, and fight using a minuscule amount of origin energy to reinforce its attack, the Armored Knight’s energy storage was also shared with its master, Mr. Klein.
Draining the Armored Knight forced the manifested Soul to tap into the energy storage of Mr. Klein, draining him rapidly. At first, Mr. Klein wanted to support the Armored Knight to ensure that it could fight by his side. After all, it was much better to outnumber his opponent in a battle. However, Mr. Klein quickly realized that the Armored Knight was draining way too much energy. At this rate, his entire energy storage would have dried up in less than a minute. That was not something he could handle.
Meanwhile, Michael’s energy storage had been fully replenished.
Since the Armored Knight didn’t have a strong self-consciousness, let alone a mental defense that could restrict Extraction, Michael had an easy time devouring the Armored Knight’s energy. Once his energy storage was filled to the brim, Michael began to fill Dragon Might’s crystalized eyes with the Power of Enhancement.
He didn’t apply Enhancement on the Legendary Artifact but filled the storages with the Power of Enhancement for later use. Since his energy storage was already filled to the brim he may as well fill Dragon Might’s storage now that he had an easy time absorbing the Armored Knight’s energy.
Michael’s attention moved away from the Armored Knight when he saw that the bright, shimmering hue around it grew fainter. He switched his attention to Mr. Klein, who had appeared next to him.
Seeing the naked middle-aged man would have usually caused Michael to feel funny or smile foolishly. But all Michael did was stare at Mr. Klein with an ice-cold gaze and a dead-serious expression. This made Mr. Klein even more uncomfortable than the loud laughter to his left, or so he thought.
He was just about to arrive in front of Michael, two swords manifested in his hands when he heard someone to his left shouting loudly, “This video will definitely gain millions of views all over Starnet!”
In a moment of shock, Mr. Klein’s head flicked to the left where he saw that a freshman couple were joking with each other while pointing their high-quality video recorders in his direction. The azure eyes of Frederik Kolbenheim glimmered in joy all while Jaqueline Orlando also could not suppress a chuckle. She pushed her hair back and zoomed closer to ensure that their video picked up every little detail – including the tiny worm that looked hideous enough to put even the ugliest Goblins to shame.
“You bastard!! Stop filmi–…” Mr. Klein began but was unable to shout anything else.
Several Spirit Whips impacted heavily on his mind just before the Wyverntooth Spear pierced through his shoulder with tremendous force. A humongous golden stream shot out of Michael’s palm, coiling around the Wyverntooth Spear before it shot inside Mr. Klein’s body where his origin energy was drained even faster.
Mr. Klein screamed out in shock. He was just about to grasp the Wyverntooth Spear when Michael’s right hand shot forward. His right hand was engulfed in a Reinforced Qi Sword that had been further enhanced by eight layers of Enhancement, attaining a power threshold the Reinforced Sword Qi had never reached before. Michael’s right hand shot forward, drawing blood and inflicting horrifying pain as the enhanced Qi Sword pierced through the joint connecting Mr. Klein’s arm and shoulder.
The sound of cracking bones rang through everyone’s ears as Michael’s attack went through Mr. Klein’s arm. But Michael was not yet done. He twisted the Qi blade and used his brute force to slash to the right.
Blood spurted through the surroundings and a severed arm followed soon.
Mr. Klein stumbled backward, but Michael didn’t allow him to escape his grasp. Driven by rage, Michael released another burst of Extraction’s golden streams to invade Mr. Klein from a second spot.
In the next moment, Michael began to drain Mr. Klein’s origin energy even faster, all while destroying his mental defense layer by layer, slowly draining his life force as well.