Spirit Soul

Kyle couldn't help but feel both excited and nervous as they approached the lair of a beast at the Vitae stage.

They had already hunted a total of six beast packs that had an average cultivation base between the late and peak Fortification stage.

As such, Gaby got the chance to practice and improve herself with every kill.

Each subsequent beast group that they encountered was stronger, harder to overwhelm and kill.

Thus, her rusty skills had sharpened considerably by the time they fought their last opponents.

It was a large beast group with a total of 27 beasts!

Owing to this great achievement even Gaby was surprised with herself.

She had believed that the past three years spent doing mundane work in the Guildhall must have suppressed the warrior within her.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

Instead, she seemed perfectly fine which was good to know.

Moreover, the best part was that she had yet to start using her mana to increase her movement speed.

This would increase her bow's tensile strength, increasing her hunting speed even further.

They walked for around an hour before they found the Blood owl.

It was around the height of a small child and had deep red feathers along with crimson eyes.

It was a beast following the cultivation path of Maest.

Kyle assumed it to be able to control blood to a certain extent.

Nevertheless, the Blood owl was the ideal beast they could hunt first.

Not only was it alone, but according to Kyle's research, it was the weakest beast at the Vitae stage around the town.

However, Gaby could only sigh as she pointed at the owl.

"I know you're excited, but hunting a Blood owl at the Mid Vitae stage is not just a small increase in the difficulty. It looked like you wanted to evaluate my strength at a slow pace, but I could have misunderstood your approach."

Even though her eyesight was not great, she was able to perceive the mana fluctuations of the Blood owl.

This made her clearly identify Kyle's next target in an instant.

Meanwhile, Kyle looked at Gaby with a stoic face.

He could only use the intel he had been able to procure during the last few days.

Unfortunately, he had yet to acquire enough funds to purchase the beast encyclopedia.

The massive book consisting of the name of every possible beast was not included in the services provided by the Guild.

Though the Blood owl looked foreboding, it had never attacked Vila town before.

This made Kyle conclude that the Blood owl was not as strong as he had assumed earlier.

'Was I too rash?' Kyle thought while biting at his lower lip.

On the other hand, Gaby appeared to be calm and unruffled.

"Fortunately, you have me by your side. A Blood owl is nothing to me!"

This caused Kyle to look at Gaby with newfound respect as her expression turned confident.

He grumbled about his shallow research inwardly and mentally scolded himself.

But Gaby had left him to his thoughts and readied herself. She pulled an ordinary arrow out of her quiver before she nocked it on the bowstring.

The Blood owl had noticed that invaders had entered its territory.

This caused it to shriek as a faint blood mist permeated its immediate surrounding.

This was a tactic employed by the beast to intimidate its opponents.

It would serve as a final warning for them to leave before it would initiate its attack.

Unfortunately, the invaders were none other than the former town captain who was at the late Vitae stage herself.

In her glorious fighting days, Gaby was nicknamed the 'Frost archer.'

And, there had been a reason for this after all- her ice affinity.

Utilizing the same ice affinity, she froze the surrounding area before taking a deep breath of the cold air.

Pulling back the bowstring, she enveloped the arrow's tip with a thin membrane of sky blue mana.

As she closed an eye to aim at her target, the tip released a faint mist.

Just by looking at the arrow-tip, Kyle felt goosebumps appear all over his body.

His eyes gleamed brightly as he averted his attention to the Blood owl. Kyle's eyes were trained on the arrow that should follow his gaze only a moment later.

Yet, nothing seemed to happen.

One second...two seconds...five seconds passed in anticipation.

Both Gaby and the Blood owl appeared to be in a standoff, staring at each other intently.

To Kyle and Selene, time seemed to have slowed down.

They stood as statues knowing that they were not supposed to make even the slightest noise, let alone a single movement.

Every single moment felt like an eternity in which Kyle and Selene watched the two opponents with bated breath.

It was only when the Blood owl made the first move, that time accelerated rapidly.

As if in slow motion, the owl unfurled its wings to take a leap from the branch it was sitting before the pace changed to fast forward.

Everything happened in a moment, and the first arrow shot towards the Blood owl with a terrifying velocity.

Despite having realized that it would be attacked upon making its first move, the Blood owl had decided to take the chance.

Its wild instincts had overwhelmed rational thinking.

Yet it was cautious of the three invaders who had trespassed its territory.

They were similar to the other beings who used all kinds of weapons to hunt beasts inside the Sadorla forest.

As such, the Blood owl was aware of what a bow was capable of.

This caused it to use its own blood to manifest a thin needle.

The blood needle was shot towards the arrow that approached it at a rapid pace and easily deflected it.

Soaring in the air, it was just about to dive towards Gaby when it noticed something.

A total of two arrows and five similar-looking objects that were made out of ice were flying towards it.

Even though the blood needle didn't consume much mana or blood, it would decrease the Blood owl's combat prowess drastically as it used blood.

In the end, it still had to react, otherwise, it would die.

As such, by extracting its own blood, the Blood owl deflected every attack.

After that, it averted its attention from Gaby to Kyle and Selene.

They had more than enough blood flowing through their veins for it to control.

Their death was the only prerequisite post that the owl could easily control their blood.

Thus, it dived towards Kyle and Selene with a rapid speed.

However, that was something Gaby had already expected.

She quickly conjured a large wall of ice right in front of the two young adventurers.

The wall served as a shield to the two and a distraction to the Blood owl.

Seconds passed in which the duo was clueless about what was going on.

But then they heard the sound of rapidly shot arrows followed by the painful screams of the Blood owl.

A moment later, Gaby appeared next to them as a single drop of sweat trickled down her temples.

"It's done..you can do...whatever you're doing with the corpse!"

According to the noises Kyle heard, she should have held back during her first two attacks.

The moment Gaby shielded both him and Selene by manifesting an ice wall in front of them, it must have drained her considerably.

Gaby's first attack was a simple arrow that was used to test the waters.

However, the second attack was a volley of three arrows that had been shot in quick succession.

Furthermore, she had conjured five icicles to make it harder for the Blood owl to save itself.

As predicted, it was difficult for the Blood owl to deflect the entire barrage of eight projectiles.

The disadvantage of the blood owl was that it had to use the blood of deceased beings, or its own in order to make use of its affinity.

As such, Gaby had already predicted how the entire fight would progress.

This was the reason for her to think that Kyle's research could have been a lot better.

In the end, they were fortunate that the Blood owl had been alone.

It had yet to find a brood partner, let alone have offsprings.

Had that been the case, it would have become a lot uglier to defeat it.

When Kyle heard Gaby, he nodded his head while mumbling "thanks" before walking around the melting ice wall.

The Blood owl's corpse was lying on the ground, barely ten meters away from them.

A total of four arrows had lodged themselves in its chest.

However, that was not interesting to Kyle.

He was more focused on the dense soul of a beast at the Vitae stage.

"Selene, come quickly!" He shouted as he grasped the soul that wanted to flee from him the moment he was about to grasp it.

It was squirming in his hand, and Kyle could feel the heat in his palm.

Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself down before pressing the Vitae stage soul into his chest.

His body temperature started to rise the moment the soul began dispersing inside his body.

It disintegrated into an enormous amount of soul particles that were overflowing within him.

This felt painful for a moment before excitement filled Kyle's eyes.

His emerald eyes became more vibrant by the second.

He empowered the Nurture ability with the soul particles as he grasped Selene's hand to tend to her problem.

Only a few seconds later, a huge amount of energy had been used up.

It was then that Kyle noticed something he had been waiting for a long time!

The Nurture ability had stopped working as the hue around her two cultivation veins dispersed.

Kyle could now see several more hues that he could nurture to help her become stronger.

He hoped to see her elated but instead, tears trickled down her cheeks.

It was not difficult to understand her tears of joy and relief and felt happy for her.

As such, Kyle was satisfied with himself because he had finally healed what Selene and everyone had labeled as an incurable disease.

Selene's pain had vanished entirely and her joy knew no bounds.

For the first time in her life, she could feel the first traces of mana seeping into her body as her legs gave in.

Hugging her knees, she put her face in her lap and continued to sob.

Kyle had never been good at comforting others, but he didn't want her to cry anymore.

Hence, he kneeled down to pat her back which caused Selene to cry only louder.

His lips twitched when he heard her whisper in gratitude.

"Thank you…"