Azzy no longer hid his soul power. He unsealed the sixth planet in his soul and let his girlfriend sense his real strength.
As Claire was only in rank-5, she couldn't accurately guess his soul power but she could compare to other rank-6 experts that she knows and Claire realized that it is only slightly lower than their homeroom teacher.
"It is true…" Claire took a step back in surprise. "From when?"
"No, a couple of months ago," Azzy clarified her as he sealed a part of his strength once again.
"It's the time you went to that wedding and an alien invasion took place?" She asked.
Azzy nodded, "I absorbed vast amounts of plasma energy."
"Plasma energy?" Claire heard of it but possesses little knowledge on the topic.
Azzy continued, "This is why I once said you to master the Decarune seal. Once you successfully complete the tenth seal, you can absorb various types of energies to increase your soul power."
"Yeah, Agatha said the same thing but I'm not getting enough time to work on it." Claire let out a sigh, remembering how tough it is to form those seals on her soul orb. Adding on top of that, she had to fight her own soul energy's resistance power and subdue it.
Azzy suggested in a soft tone, "It will get more difficult as you get stronger. So, I urge you to work on it before you make a breakthrough."
"I guess I have to do that." Claire let out another sigh, thinking about how hard she will have to work in the near future, now that the gap between her and Azzy widened by a whole realm.
A day ago, she thought that she had greatly lessened the gap between them after reaching peak-rank-5 and was confident that she won't drag him down in the world league even without depending on the adamantine gloves but now, the reality hit her. She realized that she still had a long way to go.
In the end, with great reluctance, Claire gave her consent to Azzy's participation in the world league with Leah.
With everything cleared up, Azzy returned to the house along with Claire for the lunch without being unaware that their entire conversation was heard by Neal who was inside the house.
However, when they returned, he behaved normally as if he was busy talking and listening to Arvid who was speaking about the current affairs of the country that was in the news.
After having their lunch, the three of them went to the village chief to check upon the skeletons.
They were neatly placed outside of the storage room as it was filled with grains and other items, and the village chief doesn't want to keep dead bodies there.
Azzy and Claire naturally understand his plight but since they were laying a trap, they cannot afford to keep them in the open. So, they requested the village chief to shift them to a place where they can be stored. Claire stressed that they were evidence.
The village chief was quite cooperative. Since he was living alone, he permitted keeping them in one of the rooms despite being disgusted by the fact that he had to sleep with skeletons in his house.
But then again, he knew that he won't live for long and will soon turn into a skeleton too.
He thought if he do a favor on some poor souls, perhaps, the god will listen to his prayers and fulfill his last wish. As long as he gets to see his grandson be it alive or corpse, he will be contented with it.
Now that everything is done, the three of them decided to wait until midnight.
Of course, they didn't sit still until then. During the afternoon and evening, the three of them went to all the houses that became victims of livestock theft and consoled them.
While giving them assurance of catching the thieves, Claire revealed the sensitive information of the discovered skeletons, like where they have kept it until they identify them.
The sunset arrived, and soon, the darkness loomed over the village. It was midnight and almost everyone in the village was sleeping.
About a couple of hundred meters away from the house of the chief village, Neal, Azzy, and Claire were sitting on the terrace of Arvid's house. Thankfully, for them, the moon was in the form of a waning crescent. So, there was almost no light in the surroundings and it is almost impossible to detect them through the naked eye.
However, right now, Claire was keeping an eye on the house of the village chief with her night vision binoculars. Meanwhile, the other two were looking elsewhere.
At around 2 a.m., just when everyone thought that their suspicion might be wrong or their plan had failed, Claire detected the presence of four men, breaking into the house.
In an instant, a smile appeared on her face. She spoke, "got them."
Azzy, with his Aura sensing, scanned his surroundings. He said, "It looks like there was no one else."
"Okay, let's go…" Claire jumped onto the ground as the four of them came out carrying the caskets. Azzy and Neal also followed from behind. Everyone didn't forget to equip night vision goggles so as to see the roads properly. They wouldn't want to accidentally destroy the private or public properties of the village, right?
As they maintained silence and suppressed their strengths, Claire thought they would be undiscovered but alas, they were wrong.
Somehow, one of them sensed the movements of Claire and the other two even from far away. He spoke in rather a loud tone, "It's a trap, run."
The one who alerted the others left the casket he was carrying and started running on his own in a different direction. On the other hand, the other three tried to run by carrying the caskets.
"I'll go after him. You take care of those." Azzy said as he stormed forward. The night vision goggles don't get a clear view as day but it was still enough for Azzy to chase after him.
Azzy caught up him to pretty much quickly and just as he was about to land a controlled punch to the back of his target, all of sudden, gray-colored energy erupted from the latter and pushed Azzy away.
Azzy was taken aback by surprise. He didn't expect that his target is a strong Arcana Master. The earlier attack was as powerful as low-rank-5. His palms were bruised when he attempted to block it.
When Azzy got up on his feet, the target was no longer in his sight. He instantly activated Aura Sense and unleashed the Eye of God soul skill.
"He's fast but not much." Azzy dashed forward with his maximum speed.
Meanwhile, the person who was getting away furrowed his brows as he glanced at the back, "dammit. This kid is stronger than I thought. I guess I need to get serious or else, I won't see the light of tomorrow."
He closed his eyes for a second and opened them. His pupils turned yellow. They started to glow in the night too.
It wasn't just his eyes but his body also went tremendous changes.
Gray fur appeared over his legs and hands. His canines turned into fangs. At the moment, he no longer appeared like a human.
He bent his body forward to keep his hands on the ground and increased his speed.
With the Eyes of God's soul skill activated, Azzy saw his transformation clearly. "A beast transformation? Is it a skill or…"
Azzy no longer took this lightly because of his suspicion.
He poured soul energy into his legs and chased after him. At his present state, it's even tough for rank-7 to catch up with Azzy's speed. How could the target escape?
Azzy caught up with the man quickly and this time, he attacked with a Protos Spear when he was about five meters away.
A rank-4 Protos Spear cut through the air and pierced the back of the target.
The man groaned in pain. The spear only left a normal wound on his back, which healed on its own pretty much quickly with his regenerative powers. However, the Protos energy that's invaded his body caused him trouble.
He couldn't help but concentrate on expelling the foreign energy from his system.
"Move… move…"
A shout from behind returned him back to reality but it was too late. Before he knew what was going on, his back was hit by Azzy who momentarily lost control of his speed.
As Azzy's body collided with the man's back, the latter was pushed away forward with great force like a truck that is going at 200 km/hr.
The man crashed onto an electric pole of all the places and broke it before falling unconscious. This time, the village plunged into darkness for real.
"Well, what to do now…" Azzy scratched his cheek in embarrassment.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel