"Kasuur!" Help! They betrayed us!"
Mais had considered it a possibility, but had given it a low probability of happening. He predicted it would happen, but he had no power to stop it. He needed Kasuur. He thought that, once they saw his riches, they would try to attack him. He knew they would try to trick Kasuur, too. He had no choice but to use them, so he acted quickly, putting distance between them so they could not react fast enough.
Even so, things did not go Mais' way.
From the beginning, Mais knew that the group's strength would be insufficient. With one of the Origin Master Traitor's henchmen in the group, words and phrases would be twisted, Kasuur would be provoked, and they would somehow be branded as traitors. This is why Mais wanted Jong to leave them. He could not defeat an Origin Master!
He thought he could take on these old men with his treasure.
Unfortunately, he was wrong. Both the ice gun and his staff slipped from his hands. He couldn't fight with his fists, either. The men in front of him wore metal armor. It was too hard for the fists of Mais, whose physical strength was weaker than that of the other Foundation Establishment cultivators.
Kasuur looked at the old man and the three soldiers who had rushed forward in shock. At that moment, another soldier grabbed his arms. They tried to immobilize him with sealed handcuffs, which were much stronger than normal handcuffs.
Kasuur was very strong. He pulled his hands away so quickly that the soldier in iron armor did not notice. He threw himself backward toward the man and, with his fat belly, turned and hit him.
PATT!
The man smashed into a tree and fell to the ground. Hearing the sound, the middle-aged man and his soldiers looked directly at the fat boy.
"Stage 9? I thought it was seven!"
He had been fighting Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators for many years, so when he saw Kasuur fight, he realized that his physical strength was at stage nine. Kasuur strangely didn't exhibit the physical strength one would expect from an adult. It was strange that there were actually muscles inside that belly.
After Mais met Kasuur, he taught him the basic principles of cultivation. Unlike the uncertain way Kasuur had learned on his own, the way Mais taught him was much safer. It was much faster. When Mais corrected his mistakes, Kasuur improved quickly. Within a few days, he had overcome the limits of the jungle. For their safety, Mais introduced him as if he was still in stage 7.
Kasuur was advancing so quickly that he could reach stage 10 if he wanted to. But Mais had warned him not to do so, saying that if he did, the others would find out. Mais' suspicion of his followers had now given them a powerful trump card.
Yes, Kasuur was strong, but he failed to stay in the moment and fight like a brave warrior. He believed he was a simple peasant. He didn't want to stand there and challenge the sixth-stage experts in metallic armor. He trembled. His chubby belly suddenly traveled meters, and he kept running. Kasuur fled with everything he had, leaving Mais behind.
Mais was blind and weaker than him. The blind boy should not have risen like a hero.
But Kasuur was not the third prince of the world empire either. He was just an ordinary peasant boy. He was only ten years old. He was not raised to be a brave warrior. No one taught him anything. He trusted his instincts.
Now, he trusted his instincts because he was afraid. He chose to run away.
The middle-aged man laughed lightly and did not let his men chase him, as if he had just seen something funny. They all chuckled in unison, as if mocking him. At that moment, Mais realized the truth, and his face turned white. The middle-aged man took the ice gun in his hand. He had seen a weapon that looked like a water pistol take down several Foundation Establishment cultivators at the same time. It must have been an incredible weapon. He turned toward Mais. Mais' long black hair blew in the wind. Mixed emotions moved across his face more violently than his hair.
"Your friend is a coward. All that talent and strength wasted on such trash. God's games are terrible, don't you think?"
The middle-aged man walked among the frozen cultivators, remembering how a man as strong as he had disappeared, his dust blowing in the wind. A gold coin was still visible where his clothes had been.
'It must not be damaging the clothes. The boy's hands must have been covered with some kind of cloth.'
But it wasn't cloth. It was cruel that Mais had killed his own epidermis and worn it as a garment. He used the cold to do it. It was a technique—or rather, a martial art—used in the Sensing stage of the Tao of Ice.
In Traces of the Tao, fighting was not an option. However, the next level, "feeling," was different. It was much more powerful. In fact, when Mais reached this level and didn't start cultivating, his body was too weak to handle the power it gave him. So his father suppressed the power so that Mais' body could feed on the energy. That's why Mais didn't suddenly break through the Beginning realm when he reached the sensing stage.
After feeling the cold, Mais used it many times. It was easy to use to alleviate pain. Although it was not possible to control things in the outside world, it was still useful with clever application.
The middle-aged man turned his head to look at the frozen body of the man in the same realm as himself. Even though he was a strong man who stood two meters tall, he would not prevail in such a battle.
"Look at this man. All that strength, and in the end, he just froze."
He stroked his whitish beard with one hand and struck the frozen old man with his weapon. The old man's eyes showed that he didn't even understand what had happened.
KITKITKITKIT!!!
Mais could not see the man who turned to dust. But the other four soldiers did. They couldn't help but swallow. At that moment, the gun turned to Mais. The old man didn't want to take any more risks. His face hardened, and his gaze sharpened. Black lines appeared on his face.
"You claim to be only eight years old, yet you're still capable of such cruelty. I'm sure everyone will agree that someone like you has no place in this world."
The trigger was pulled.
Like cold smoke, white-blue particles flew out of the ice gun and landed on Mais. In this attack that lasted only seconds, Mais could have escaped if he could have seen. But he could not see or escape, so no one took pity on him.
Mais was trapped in the icy particles.
At the same moment, his unexpected, childish voice reached them through the ice.
"Ice has represented cold many times. But I am sure that, even with my advanced understanding of the Tao, I would still not be able to withstand the power of this ice weapon."
This was not something that was used as a weapon. It was used to support cultivation. Unclaimed chunks of cold ice were easy to control. Someone from the Foundation Establishment Realm could easily animate it. In the Core Realm, it was used for training purposes, so it was not extremely harmful, of course.
Mais moved his hand around slowly, as if polishing a sphere. The cold swirled around him, but did not touch him. At that moment, the middle-aged man kept firing out of fear.
However, he had already lost this encounter after the first shot.