Sadly, they had some items on them that meddled with their essence, so he couldn't Mana Discern their Classes for information.

However, they couldn't mask their essence purity and the rank of their existence through the most primal sensation of evolutionary order.

'Kings. A King is matching Xin's physical prowess. The sniper is shooting his ally, support-type bullets?' Ebony didn't step in but the moment he appeared once more, the gunner aimed at him while the sickle and chain fighter kept Xin busy.

All it took was taking aim, and pulling the trigger. Xin's blood halo was torn through and the bullet landed right in the middle of his forehead.

Ebony rubbed his forehead at the new bullet.

It didn't explode, allowing him to hold the dented bullet between his fingers to study it while the sniper received Xin's pride-hurt counter.

The bullet was still vibrating, both from the reflection of mana his body naturally produces and its natural frequency.

Now that he was aware of an attacker, he had his vibrational shield of mana on top of his Mantle of Reservation, but the bullet wasn't even hot and it pierced through his gravity Mantle rather easily.

'Engravings but still no mana. A different energy, maybe?' Ebony didn't think the marksmen would be holding back from imbuing their bullets with external sources of energy, because the intent to kill him was real.

Taking a look at the gun in the hooded figure's hands, he couldn't discern much.

What he discerned was that the two figures wearing the same cloak were depending on the black cloak to hide their classes, levels and appearances. That clock didn't let Mana Discern through.

Xin gave him a 'stay out of this' glare, so he sat on the rooftop he Flicker onto, within a kilometre of the battle happening. That was extremely close for fighters of their strength and reach.

To the duo's credit, they weren't running even after the initial clash with Xin, and they were still intent on going after him. However, they seemed to understand they needed to get past Xin first and focused on her.

Elbow on knee, he rested his chin on his palm and simulated how he would fight them in her place.

Another bullet landed on his eyeball, throat and nose.

After they hit, stopped in their path and fell into a well-positioned palm he would study the bullets. Another type with a different shape and engravings, yet no discernible energy.

Ebony took a bottle out and gravitated a bit of water into his eye. 'I shouldn't take the eye shot again, dusty.'

His right brow raised ever so slightly when the sickle and chain fighter used a weird movement technique and an active Skill slash that sent Xin back when they clashed, at the same time, the weighted chain came flying towards him.

The man seemed to have grinned under his cloak when his weighted chain wrapped around Ebony's ankle and he tugged hard after grounding feet tight enough to cause deep cracks on the stone tiles.

He pulled himself off the ground and landed on the rooftop with his belly facing down. Ebony looked down at the stunned fighter before he had his back stabbed and the roof collapsed under Xin's dive.

Ebony was still seated. 'The structure's pretty stable.' He noticed the house hadn't collapsed, even with a hole in it. He dragged the two children inside the house out with mana since he sat on the rooftop, so they were safe.

Unclassed's magic body was so weak that he could directly conjure mana over their skin.

Gravitationally locking his body to have the same movement as the gravity of the planet and enhancing it made it hard to move him; it was like making himself part of the ground, but with the addition of more gravity mana.

After all, they were within the reach of Dusk and the gravity cube he left with Dusk.

'He stopped his blood from being eaten, interesting.' Ebony saw the fighter stand up and continue despite being a fish on a chopping board after the dive and twin sword stabbing through him. Xin's swords were also already dry, they didn't manage to absorb much.

She didn't look like her Vitality Pilfer worked either. He also didn't turn into crisps or ashes upon contact with her swords.

If the chain wrapping around his legs was an Active Skill and not just a simple swing backed by Mastery Skill, it probably would've caused him some damage. Atlas, it wasn't, and Xin wouldn't give him a second chance to touch Ebony.

'King ranked bounty hunter. Quite a bit more capable than the ones frozen at our house. Tier 5 Mastery is not too bad. The sniper is a bit boring, he's not changing anything up despite the repeated failures. Are the non-energy bullets buffing their targets somehow?' Ebony decided to watch for the next bullet aimed at the sickle and chain fighter.

When his chance came, he Flickered into the path before the man pulled the trigger, since the projectile velocity was much too fast.

'Oh, there is something.' Ebony felt his mana jiggle a bit at the spot he was hit, but was quickly disappointed. 'Like a poison, it's too dilute for my volume of mana and no enhancement in the end.' The bullet he took this time, once again, had nothing stuck or imbued in it. Perhaps it was because it was injected into him at the moment of contact with skin.

'Does this mean the previous attacks all had some harmful energy imbued? My mana pool which is all over my body is too voluminous, so the 'salt' added doesn't change the ocean's saltiness.'

If there was some harmful energy, it was so faint he wasn't able to sense it. More so compared to the buff, which he at least felt something.

In any case, they weren't even close to Xin's Inherited Stamp, which was potent enough to strengthen him.

The closed-range fighter noticed the increase in Xin's physical strength too late and wasn't able to figure out how her Art works.

When 'his' head rolled and cloak loosened, Ebony saw the ball roll from the cloak while Xin chased the sniper who still hadn't run away.

"A puppet." He kicked the wooden head up and into his hands like a soccer ball. "A puppet with a Tier 5 Mastery and physical stats equal to Xin after all her augmentation.' He let the small amount of red fluid drip down the neck of the wooden head.

Xin returned to his side with another wooden body. "I got kill notifications. They have souls."

"Mmm." He sounded out his intrigue.

"I wasn't clear. I meant I had multiple kill notifications from one kill. This one had 4, the sniper had 3." Xin pointed to the head in his hands.

"Multiple souls packed in one puppet body?" Now his interest was piqued.

"I believe so. Poor souls, that's all the power they can produce even after working together." Rather than pure power, the puppets just weren't good at fighting.

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"It's okay, it might be the nature of their construct weakening them. And you released them so they don't have to suffer being so weak as a King anymore." Ebony fiddle Mana Discern through the puppet bodies.

Ebony wondered if there was any point in burying a wooden puppet. Too bad burying a soul was outside of his knowledge or capabilities. If that was even possible.

"Any idea what this is?" Ebony asked Oplot who was waltzing towards them on the ground. He leapt off the roof with the puppet to show the 'Emperor' of these lands.

"Abomination. You released them from their suffering so fast, I couldn't see them. I have some ideas if I could see them alive. Some races specialise in souls that can do that. However, there are also some people with a rare class capable of similar things.

They find dying people, take their souls and mend them together with other souls that have different damage sustained. Merging them into one 'healthy' soul without holes and putting them into another body.

Most organic bodies would reject it, souls have shape after all. And a wooden puppet isn't the best but as you can see from this odd shaped puppet, it's made from a tree that can change its form to meet the abomination of merged souls." Oplot showed off the facial expression of the wooden puppet.

It had features of both male and female, human and non-human, all fitted into one face.

As a wooden, one-colour-toned face, it was not easy to tell unless one looked closely.

With the gun in hand, Ebony thought it resembled a Hécate, but he never had much interest in guns to know for sure, and this was probably entirely different from the guns he knew.

Ebony called Sophia and it connected, "Out of training with Na? Anyway, I need your help to see if you can trace who sent these soul puppets after me."

"Soul what?" The exhausted spy girl huffed in confusion.

Dusk scanned the continent with mana pulses and activated the inactive Will Relay Buffers. 6 minutes later, Ebony found Sophia's location near Ordina and created a gravity tunnel to send her over.

He sensed her sigh, but she still willingly followed the conjured ice arrow sign.

'She trained okay.' Ebony noticed her growth and increased her propulsion. Still, it would take her half a day to arrive safely, without killing her.

In the meantime, they heard singing.

Muse was here, she must have sensed the weird souls.

Her voice struck his very soul.

It made him feel a dry sadness. 'This should do as a soul burial of sorts.'

'She's leagues above when it comes to music.' Ebony was already looking for her to have her assess Resolve's Cadence.

It was his answer to putting emotions into sound to make it music. He was curious to hear his music teacher's feedback on what he deemed a success at expressing himself by deleting rhymes and lyrics. Using pure Will and emotions and letting mana vibrate according to that frequency should be the most unadulterated form of expressing oneself in music.

However, he had to admit that when it comes to soothing the ears and very soul, Muse's singing was as pleasant as it could get. It almost beat hearing his wife's voice whispering in his ears.

Ebony could roughly feel his soul, but not sense souls so he couldn't tell what Muse was doing exactly. His frozen soul eye was still frozen so it wasn't a healing spell. 'I have to at least heal this before I evolve.'

'Agenda – back to Arcta. Vacation. Look for Gen and Ful for a spar and observing Ful's flames once more with current perception. Most importantly, look for Will in their flames for their properties and purpose.

Heal this soul injury to be in the perfect state before evolution

Possibly break the seventh seal on Dusk for another boost

Charge mana for Dusk for protection.'

It would be nice to have Kiva keep Xin occupied, were he to be asleep for months during his evolutionary period.

Tidal didn't seem all that safe if the bounty hunters were right inside the city.

'Huh, my bounty increased 5-fold? What changed? Who seriously wants me dead? Did I have real enemies?' Ebony checked Eidolon for information but didn't expect his 'dead-only' bounty to increase.

He had assumed Gearhart only wanted him alive.

He didn't think he made any enemies other than Gearhart. The Nebulians should have worse problems to deal with, especially after their Saints had to face Vent, and they were supposedly in generational debt. 'Did they Mandate money into existence or something…'

Teheil…he shouldn't have made enemies who wanted him dead for good. He was able to sell food and his services in making equipment last longer, or people to travel faster, without anyone outrightly targeting his life.

He stayed away from interacting with people so much that he was confused about who wanted his life.

Elcrians?

The updated information about his combat abilities were still vastly inaccurate and if there were people like Sophia around, Elcrians would know his capabilities better.

Going through a list of possibilities, Ebony ended up with the people he had sealed and left open at his home. The previous bounty hunters.

'Did some of them have a strong company they relied on? Even so, its not like I killed any of them, and no one reached out to bail them. Why would bounty hunters even put up a higher bounty…this train of thought is not for me,' Ebony couldn't wait to pass this normal thinking to Sophia since he wasn't reaching any reasonable conclusions. He was missing information.

Getting his wife's opinion, she threw out a curveball that never crossed his mind. "Maybe your clan put it up to send fighters after you. I heard some of my uncles and aunties doing that when they ran out of worthy opponents. I'm just kidding--"

"That's genius….that would explain the 'dead only' that's been confusing me." Ebony considered maybe increasing the bounty on himself.

Why look for strong opponents if he could easily attract them to him?

'Elders truly are more experienced and understand life better. How did I miss such a simple, efficient and effective method?'

"No! You dummy!"

He got headbonked.

❅❅❅

Back in the hall, a long 'talk' where he was holding a tray of dessert in futility. Ebony earned a new experience.

Being nagged at for over an hour on the same topic was indeed a fresh experience. And the sweet pastry didn't work for the first time.

The couple ended up with a compromise that they—or he, wasn't allowed to place a bounty on himself until they were Emperors that had difficulty finding a good challenge without significant time and effort.

Now, there were simply too many people who could be a challenge, and threats were too easy to find. There was no need to go so far to chop their own heads off.

"Aaah!" She puffed her cheeks after the occasional glances she had been giving the tarts on the tray.

Both of them knew it was not an accident when her tongue licked his fingers as he fed her.

"I know that person. Grandma said she has an interesting skill set." Xin suddenly changed her topic and eyed an elderly Elf. When Elves looked elderly, they were probably ancient.

Ebony didn't immediately Mana Discern the grey-blond-haired old lady. The Elf was invisible to the mana perception. Mana Discern might slip others' perception with Will used but he knew better than to play with mana with the Elves.

Yet, physical observation was enough for plenty of information.

'Strong scented plants, opposite of the gentle scent-loving Elves. Extremely colourful dress, another oddity for the nature-loving race. Rough skin only on her hands and fingers, sharp eyes. Archer? Forearms don't have the muscles of an archer. Those calluses are from holding a pen or brush.

The old lady did not give off a strong aura or essence. Her body was frail, limbs dried out and skinny. But her eyes alone were enough to tell that she was still bright and had nothing wrong with her mental capabilities.

Ebony had a feeling she was one of those maxed out at the ranks of a King, at level 750, but then wasn't able to evolve or chose not to. It wouldn't be too rare for the Elves. Still, humans and beastmen had the population and a select few elites who could match those powers despite barely having anyone at that level. While Elves had a good proportion of their people who weren't pure combatants.

As for the Dwarves, the current generation didn't seem to have any outstanding combatants, but there were plenty of outstanding smiths.

"Young Xeng. Blessed by mana. Tainted by the frost. Kindly stop staring at me. It is unpleasant." The old lady slowly glanced over. The instant their eyes met, words were painted in Gia inside his mindspace.

'My mindspace is too easily invaded, even though I don't take any damage. Then again, the less harmful, the easier it is to invade. Talking is like air entering, mental defence is tricky.'

"Colourful elder, I was just wondering if you were any strong. That's all." Ebony packed Will into Resolve's Cadence and properly added words for the normal ear and sent it towards the old Elf the same way she did, through eye contact.

"Colourful? Apt. I suppose you're the most beautiful one of those dirty-blooded, bless mana for being able to beautify one of your people to be bearable in the same room. Where are my manners? I'm called the Painter of Animation around these parts."

'Never heard of her.' Ebony ran through the possibilities and came up with one.

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