Chapter 786: Fancy New Cloak

As he walked down the cobblestone streets, he kept examining his new cloak. It was really something else. The way it interacted with his spatial senses was particularly amazing. His previous spatial magic techniques seemed so basic by comparison.

They were like a drum echoing through an empty room. Strong, but simplistic.

However, the cloak sang like a symphony. It tickled his senses so delicately and wonderfully that he lost himself in its intricacies. A truly magnificent piece of magic.

He also realized another benefit of this new skill. An even more spectacular bonus than gaining another legendary skill.

He might have solved his clothing issue.

One of his biggest expenses had always been his clothes. His habit of blowing himself up meant he went through clothes faster than he could buy them. However, [Mantle of the Everlasting Void] might be the solution to this problem. It was just big enough to cover his lower half.

Somebody would still see that he wasn’t wearing pants, but at least he could maintain some dignity. There was nothing more embarrassing than crawling out of a scorched hole of his own creation with nothing but his birthday suit on.

While he walked, he also took the time to play with his new fancy skill. When manifested, his void energy responded so quickly that it almost spiraled out of his control. It was like driving a run-down beater your entire life and then getting handed a sports car without any instructions.

That also meant his first teleportation was a little more… explosive than it probably should have been. He missed his intended spot by a good ten feet. Not because of the skill's own problems, but because he added way too much mana to the skill.

It overshot him, and he ended up appearing inside a wall. His will battled the piece of wall for dominance, arguing about who had the right to this physical space. Luckily for him, he barely emerged victorious. The wall exploded into small pieces from the sudden transportation, and half the building collapsed.

He winced, especially when he sensed several auras suddenly flare up and start heading in his direction.

Though that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He wanted to test his new skill, and with a much more optimistic grin, he waited for the auras to arrive.

While he waited, he fooled around with the shape of the mantle itself. It originally manifested as a simple piece of black cloth that hung over his shoulders and went to his mid-thighs. But he quickly understood that the skill allowed him to adjust its shape.

So he made a few adjustments. First he elongated it slightly so that it would hang just above his knees. He also added a second compression layer that was essentially underwear. That way, if he was naked underneath it, he wouldn’t flash anyone if he lifted his leg too high. Then, just because he wanted to, he created a hood.

The soft fabric-like material nestled around his head and slightly concealed his face. With the hood over his ears, he could have sworn he heard the symphony coming from the cloak even more clearly. The sound was comforting, and he found himself closing his eyes as he relaxed to its soft melody.

It was so nice that he almost forgot about the humongous mountain still falling from the sky.

When the group of auras arrived, they didn’t even bother to greet him properly. One of them, a young woman with black veins crawling all over her face, was already throwing a punch at his face.

He didn’t bother to move. He shifted his cloak to intercept the attack. He already understood some of the properties of the skill but wanted to see them with his own eyes.

A fistful of kinetic and death energy hammered into the cloak with the force of a freight train. Yet to his immense surprise, the cloak, despite being made up of such a thin layer of material, managed to dissipate almost the entire force of the attack. Instead of getting his teeth punched in, it felt like something tapped him on the face.

All the while, it let out a soft hum, and all of the death energy trying to eat away at him was torn apart like it was nothing. He could feel some of his ruinous aura coming into play, too. Somehow, his new skill integrated his aura without his input. It was so natural and so efficient that he stood there in bafflement, not even realizing when another enemy came from behind and slammed a staff into his spine.

Once again, the attack did practically no damage; it only tickled. The sword that followed was even less effective. A multi-layered sharpened edge of pure death mana was folded over the blade, but when it met the cloak, it might as well have been a blunt stick. The blade glanced off without damaging the cloak, and Julius watched the lifeless eyes of the man who attacked him slightly pause as if confused.

However, they weren’t exactly stupid, and instead of continuing to hammer the cloak, they eventually went for his exposed limbs. They targeted his hands and the lower parts of his legs. Though it wasn’t like Julius just let them do this. He created several layers of void energy around his exposed limbs.

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For some reason, he couldn’t extend the cloak down to his feet, so he had to make do with this. Still, the new skill was really something else. Using the mantle as a source of energy and medium, the void energy responded like an old friend and wrapped his limbs up in a protective cocoon. Hexagonal panels of slightly purple light layered over his body, meeting these strikes head-on.

These barriers weren’t as strong as his new cloak, but they still held up under the blows. Some of the kinetic energy passed through, and he felt his bones start to crack from the sheer force.

His healing skill solved that issue instantly. Once he realized he wasn’t in any danger against these powerful Tier 4s, he just sat down on the ground.

They froze for a few moments, looking down at him and not knowing what to do. Their weapons hovered over his still body as they thought about what to do. However, instincts must have taken over because they quickly resumed their assault.

As for Julius, he sat with closed eyes and watched as his newest skill seemed to absorb and deflect every attempt with alarming ease. He hadn’t been trying to get a defensive skill, but [Mantle of the Everlasting Void] seemed to make an impressive defensive fortress.

Only when one of the half-dead humans stepped back and started channeling a skill of some kind did Julius actually pay attention. He could feel the immense amount of Authority being channeled into the skill. Not only that, but a surge of power from somewhere else suddenly began to infuse their bodies.

Their staff, which hadn’t been able to damage him, rose above their head, and the world seemed to darken for a moment. He felt his soul clench as he observed the staff suck the kinetic energy in the surrounding area into its shaft just before it slammed into his cloak.

For the first time, he realized the cloak couldn't withstand the full force of the blow. He shifted slightly to the side, so the staff missed his skull. But it still crushed his shoulder like an avalanche.

The bones in his shoulder shattered from the blow, but that didn’t draw any groans from him. Instead, he looked at the cloak and saw that while it hadn’t blocked the force behind the attack, the fabric itself was fine. It looked just as pristine as it did when it first manifested.

Happy with his experimentations, he nodded and quickly healed his injured shoulder. Then, just as the staff wielder was about to attack him again, he shot his hand forward and intercepted the blow before it could land again. His hand broke into small pieces, but he didn’t care. He wrapped his hand around the shaft and yanked it back to him, pulling the man holding it closer.

With the new skill's defensive abilities properly tested, he decided to test its offensive capabilities a bit. And so he used the skill to charge void energy into the crown of his head. Then, with a quick snap of his neck, he bashed his head into the staff wielder without mercy.

The eruption of void energy was violent. The symphony playing in his head suddenly roared and speared forward at his target. [Void Strike] had always been a simplistic attack skill. One built off a powerful source of spatial energy and willpower.

This attack was both similar and completely different. Instead of bashing into his opponent, the void energy tunneled into them like a drill. It penetrated so deeply that he could have sworn he felt something deep within them crack.

With [Lord of the Dying Sun] being reinforced with so much kinetic energy, it was too much. Their head split open like a watermelon, and they fell limply to the ground.

Julius didn’t stop there either; before the others could react, he teleported into the void. They tried to stop the teleportation, but it was futile. He barely felt their efforts and appeared next to them. A simple punch to the back of the neck obliterated the sword user and sent him to the afterlife.

Then he ducked to avoid the woman’s fist tearing at his head, and stepped forward, snapping out his leg full of void energy at her calf. Her leg was vaporized, and another step forward did the same to her chest.

He turned around just in time to block a concentrated burst of kinetic energy coming from the remaining opponent in the distance with his cloak. However, he took a simple step forward and, in a seamless display of spatial magic, he appeared with his hand wrapped around their neck. A pulse of void energy and kinetic energy removed it from existence.

After they were all dead, he looked at his hands. His heart raced a little bit. The power from the new skill couldn’t be more evident. The bodies on the ground spoke of it loud and clear. But it was the efficiency that astonished him more. Void-related abilities had always been his most costly thing to use.

Especially [Void Step].

That's why he tried not to teleport around like a crazy person. It ate up his mana pool like no other.

However, that seemed to have changed drastically with [Mantle of the Everlasting Void]. The cost hadn’t just been cut in half. It was even less.

Julius ran his fingers over the flowing black material with an excited grin.

“You and I are going to be great friends”, he whispered to the cloak.

He could have sworn he felt a flicker of void energy respond, but honestly, he could have been imagining it.

He looked up and noticed that the mountain had gotten larger. He estimated he only had a little more time before it impacted the city and the sect. As much as he wanted to experiment and look around, he stood up straight and looked down the street toward what he suspected was a sect of kinetic energy users.

He was about to go deeper, but his senses screamed danger, and he barely managed to shift his cloak in time to block an invisible strike. Still, he was knocked off his feet and thrown a dozen feet into the side of a building, cracking the wall.

He pulled himself up and was forced to roll forward as another invisible attack hurtled toward him. He looked off in the far distance where the attack had come from and frowned.

His spatial senses didn’t pick up anything, which meant it was outside his perception range.

He flashed a cheerful grin and stretched his limbs before blasting kinetic energy through his legs and heading straight toward the source of the attacks. His new best friend, flapping in the wind as it trailed alongside him.