68 Phantom in the rain (1/2)

”Father, are you alright!?” Edric tried to support his father up with great concern.

Albert continued to cough up blood as he replayed the scene in his mind with lingering fear.

Although he had suffer heavy injuries, he was fortunate to have kept his life. Leon's fist had broken his understanding of the physical limits of humans.

Earth-users like him bolstered great confidence in their defences as even the physical strength of a peak 9th step awakener would not be able to break the defence of his earth armour so easily.

However, Leon had teared through it easily or so Albert thought. Leon had thrown three punches in an instant to generate such incredible force.

Albert was under the impression that Leon's physical strength had already exceeded the peak 9th step, but he did not think that Leon was a transcendent.

Albert knew that Leon is a fire-user. If he was a transcendent, he did not had to act weak as he could just burn them all to death with his transcendental fire-ability. A transcendent was a revered and mighty existence and should never be disrespected.

In the Crawford Kingdom, where transcendent-level awakeners were non-existent, they would be able to summon the winds and rains to dictate the fate of the kingdom. The throne is theirs for the taking if it was their wish to usurp the current reigning sovereignty.

Albert believed that Leon's abnormal strength is related to his secrets. His eyes burned with greed as he arrived at this conclusion.

”Okay? Do I look okay?” Albert asked rhetorically as he coughed up another mouthful of blood. ”Let's go.”

”Go? Go where?”

”Where else? Back home! Or did you want to stay here instead?” Albert felt frustrated at his son's stupid question. Did he not see how his father was shot flying? He was a 7th step earth-user but he was no longer in a condition to do battle due to his heavy injuries. He had to go back and seek stronger help. He wasn't going to give up so easily when there's a chance for his family to ascend to greater heights.

He had sent all his servants after Leon in his fit of rage, but he did not think that they would actually be able to kill Leon now that his mind had calmed down.

At most, they could only buy time for him to return home and get help from his father. Whether they survived or not did not bother him. He could just train a new batch of servants.

He was still reluctant to ask the other families for help. They may be in alliance, but they were still rivals in the end. He naturally wouldn't want to see them grow stronger than they already are.

...

”Come back here!”

The servants had not had many chances to practice shooting with firearms as the private production of bullets weren't cheap and easy to make. They couldn't be extravagant with their bullets.

Their aims were unsteady as they were chasing at high speed.

Shots were fired but the trajectory were completely off target.

They were no match for Leon's speed as he continue to draw further away before turning a corner and disappearing out of their sight.

”Where did he go!?”

”Left? Right? Or did he climb up the building?”

”Should we split up and search?”

”Do you want to die?”

Leon's powerful punch was still fresh in their minds. They wouldn't be able to take him on individually. They had to stick together to stand a chance.

On the rooftop of one of the buildings, Leon had switched out into his nightwear. The black clothing blends in the night and grants him a higher level of stealth, making it harder for them to detect him.

”Shit, then do you want to head back and tell our lord that we lost our target?”

”This... let's split up into 5 teams and search.”

”We can only do that.”

They don't want to be punished by their lord. Their lord did not take lightly to failures. They were unaware that they were just cannon fodders in the eyes of their lord.

The five newly formed teams scattered into different directions, with one team climbing a building to search from above.

On the rooftop of a different building, Leon listened in on their dialogue with a hyper focus.

Their actions worked towards his advantage but there would still be 5 servants per team. It was impossible for Leon to take them head on.

He doesn't know how good they were at close combat compared to their steward, but he had learnt from his mistake. He would not take the risk, but neither was there a need to.

He had no choice back then because he had to protect Mia. The steward did not give them the opportunity to escape.