Spirit Soul

After they left the Capital's Guildhall, Kyle looked quite satisfied.

"I didn't expect that there would be this many overpopulating monsters.

We don't really have to hold back in killing any of them!"

The others nodded their heads, similarly satisfied with not having to be careful about limiting themselves to hunt only a few beasts.

However, what they didn't know was the fact that the Glory Knight academy followed by the capital's two other schools was responsible for decimating the number of overpopulating beasts.

An exam was set up once the number of beasts crossed a certain threshold, rewarding the students that killed the most and the strongest beasts around the capital with academy points, and other treasures.

This solved many issues at hand, preventing anyone from relying on Adventurer squads to kill the beasts that were overpopulating the wilderness and could pose a threat to the other intelligent races in near future.

In fact, there was already an exam planned to be held as too many beasts had suddenly increased in numbers by more than ten times, creating more trouble than they had faced in the previous years.

Little did anyone know that a determined hunting squad was ready to kill as many beasts as possible in one week!

Kyle and the three women were strong enough to fight large hordes of beasts at the Mid Vitae stage as well as smaller hordes of Late Vitae stage beasts.

With that in mind, the areas they had to avoid were just a few.

'With the Soul energy I accumulate, I should nurture Arashi's mutation path, and Selene's cultivation veins!'

Leaving the capital through the main gates, they walked outside and their group attracted some interest as everybody stared at them.

Being an Aldra look-alike and walking at the front with three women behind a man was a rare sight.

To top it all, all the three women were beauties, making Kyle attract lots of attention.

However, even then most of the guys stared at the beautiful women behind him, falling in a trance as none of them seemed to have any flaws while being distinctly beautiful and graceful in their own accord.

"Let's make haste. We have only 12 hours left before dawn!"

After they had found their empty dorm rooms the day before, their small squad went to sleep so as to get up sleeping early in the morning well before sunrise.

This allowed them to go out hunting for the longest period during the day, while they could use the night to sleep, cultivate, or review their combat prowess, the mistakes they did while fighting, and so on!

Kyle found the review time to be quite important because it allowed them to become stronger, and to calmly evaluate their own strength, and that of their comrades.

While running through the wilderness, he was trying to gauge Selene's strength, a little bit.

She was obviously at a higher cultivation base than him, but to achieve this with her quite weak cultivation veins, Selene must have spent the vast majority of her time cultivating, or using other cultivation resources that helped her to advance faster.

Thus, he was most interested in her strength.

Because of that, he searched for a large horde of Mid ranked Vitae stage Thunder Deers to fight.

They were grazing in one of the few open areas within the forest that bordered the capital, allowing him and the others to find a suitable position to attack and prepare themselves properly.

Only a few minutes had passed before everyone finished their preparations.

Without any hesitation, Kyle enveloped his body in dense wind currents, while coursing Soul force through his body.

Catapulting himself out of the thicket that had hidden him, he came out in the open and was quickly discovered.

Yet, instead of backing off, the Thunder Deers were enraged to spot the intruder and charged forward using their mana in order to attack him with two different types of attacks at once.

Firstly, each of them used their thunder ability to create an ear-piercing noise that overlapped with one another, turning into a lethal attack.

But the second attack was even worse, which they had combined with the first, making electricity shoot out from the Thunder Deers.

The electricity was not lethal and barely affected Kyle, only for both the sound and electric currents to overlap each other as well.

This was even more frustrating when the electric currents destroyed the wind that had enveloped his body.

Thus, Kyle changed his way of attacks and manifested wind platforms in front of him.

Stepping on them one after the other, he slowly shot into the air, as his altitude increased, the more wind platforms he created.

Continuing to run, he reached the center of the Thunder Deer horde in no time.

Having gained the interest of nearly all of them, Kyle manifested more than a hundred wind needles at the same time.

However, before he shot them out, Arashi emerged fromf him and landed on all fours on a wind platform nearby.

Just a moment later, the surrounding winds were under the control of the Spirit Soul, who began boosting the wind needles.

In fact, more wind needles were now hovering in the air with strong gusts of wind shrouding them.

At this moment, Kyle lifted his hand, only to bring it down with a strong motion that amazed Selene.

"So..powerful!"

Blurting out these two words, Selene quickly quieted down, only for Beatrice and Yasmine to smile wryly as they had already seen his proficiency with the wind. All of them watched as the first wind needles rained down on the horde of Thunder Deers.

This was the moment they had been waiting for.

Thus, by circulating their respective cultivation energy through their bodies, both Beatrice and Yasmine shot forward, ready to enter the fray at once.

Fiery red flames enveloped Yasmine's wings moments after she emerged from the bush they had been hiding in before.

As she flapped her wings, red sparks flew through the air, only for the Phoenix halfling to disappear from everybody's sight.

Her speed had increased further, leaving behind a trail of flames that roughly outlined the path she flew through.

A second later she had emerged near Kyle, ready to throw her own elemental attacks at the Thunder Deers that were in a disarray.

The flames that enveloped her wings spread further, separating after a short moment.

All the flames continued to enlarge as the wings of flames changed their shape, turning into dozens of explosive fireballs which Yasmine shot at the outer circle of the horde.

Instead of choosing the most crowded area to target and kill most opponents, Yasmine forcefully prevented the Thunder Deers from leaving the open space and trapped them in the small space by throwing her fireballs all around them.

They wanted to seriously maim all the beasts in the surrounding area, and not leave even a single one capable of running away and escaping their clutches.

Kyle was unable to focus on fighting and devouring the souls of the deceased, not if they were killed by the others further away from him.

As such, they had decided to severely injure the hordes of beasts they were supposed to fight before Kyle would kill them once everything was under their control.

This was the best they could do, and Yasmine supported this by restricting the movements of the Thunder Deer.

On the other hand, Beatrice's entire body was enveloped in a subtle bloody hue, while her hands were shrouded in gauntlets.

She could control the gauntlets of the Blood armor, which in turn allowed her to enhance the strength in her wrist to an unimaginable degree.

To make use of this, Beatrice had thought of changing the weapon she wanted to use.

Yet, instead of doing so, she kept using her daggers, which were as long as her shortswords.

They curved at the inside, making it seem as if their appearance was similar to small sabers.

Thus, using them to severely injure the Thunder Deers upon nearing them, Beatrice's face was showered with the blood of the beasts that spurted out of the injuries she inflicted upon them.

But instead of feeling as if this was an addictive sensation, the moment Beatrice licked their blood off her lips, she frowned deeply.

'So bitter…Kyle's blood is truly the best!'

With that in mind, Beatrice hoped to get some more blood from him directly if she were to do a good job and help him gain more souls to devour.

Receiving his blood through reserves was still fine, but the fresh blood merged with his scent was certainly the best she had tasted yet.

Taking this into consideration, Beatrice actively controlled the blood that circulated through her body to merge it with her mana and spirit force.

Through this, it was possible for her to increase the speed at which she could move as well as her reaction time.

Within just a few moments, it was possible for her to flash through the rows of Thunder Deers, severely injuring them one after another.

Selene was just stupefied for a moment, clearly understanding that the trio's teamwork was phenomenal.

It was easy to see that they had fought a few battles together and that they knew the strength and weaknesses of their partners.

Understanding that this was not the case with her addition to the group, a grimace appeared on her face.

Selene hesitated for a moment, only to tell herself one thing just when she was about to question if the things she did were correct.

'Kyle came back for me…If I give up now, I might as well leave him before I become a burden to him!!'

This thought flashed through her mind, giving her the necessary motivation to exert the Swift Steps movement technique.

Shooting out of the bushes, she decided to take out the Thunder Deers that were able to leave the encirclement created by Yasmine.

Even if she wanted to showcase how powerful she was and that her strength was exceptional, Selene understood that her intervention would harm their teamwork if she were to jump in right now.

'I will become a part of their group!!' She pledged to herself, clenching her fist around the daggers she wielded before attacking the vital points of the Thunder Deers she reached, inflicting injuries that would slowly kill them.

All three women used similar weapons, which was something that Kyle noticed relatively quickly as all of them had begun to enter close combat with the opponents that were supposed to be quite good at harming the foes that were close to them.

This could turn into a downside in the future as a group should be rather balanced out, and not filled with three assassins.

Meanwhile, Kyle could fight differently, making use of long and short-range attacks.

Taking this into consideration, he decided to shroud himself in wind currents once again before joining the battlefield on the ground.

Surrounding himself with compressed wind currents that were under his control, Kyle unsheathed the Starbreaker Katana.

A moment later, the wind platform below him disappeared, forcing him to the ground as the gravitational force did its work.

Slowing down his fall with the wind affinity, Kyle used the compressed crescent wind blades to swiftly kill the beasts around him within a moment.

Circulating Soul force through the Starbreaker Katana, it was possible for him to devour the souls of the deceased in an instant.

Simultaneously, Arashi emerged around the horde, killing off the beasts that Selene had severely injured.

Afterward, the Spirit Soul devoured the souls of the deceased, only to continue with his killing spree.

None of them had any idea how long the entire fight lasted, but the entire battlefield looked like a big, open slaughterhouse once it was over.

Kyle's body was overflowing with soul particles, and once Arashi merged with him, he received the Soul particles of the Spirit Soul as well.

Storing the vast majority of it in the Soul storage, Kyle couldn't help but smile, feeling that their first hunt was already exceptional.

"Good job girls, let's continue like this!"