Kayn watched with intensity as the last of Barabato's physical body was disappearing, hoping that his All-Seeing Eyes would be able to catch a glimpse of the soul that should go travel back to the phylactery. However, even after a few minutes of the corpse being gone, Kayn saw nothing.
Kayn spread his Mana Sense as far as it could currently go, which was quite far, but he still had no indication of where the phylactery of Barabato was. It was at this moment that the crystal he was still holding in his hand lit up with ghastly green flames and sizzled from existence.
Kayn had to quickly release the orb as he felt the flames would be detrimental to his health somehow, and he watched as the orb dropped down through the sky while turning into smoke.
To every normal sense and even his Mana Sense, the orb was destroyed and there was nothing left behind of it other than the smoke it had left behind as it burned up. Instead of frowning though, Kayn smiled, why?
Because his All-Seeing Eyes finally revealed to him what he was waiting for. Rather than the orb vanishing, it was all just an extravagant act to fool whoever had the orb if they managed to extract it. What really happened was that several concealment arrays inscribed into the orb were activated, making it all but invisible to everyone, everyone but Kayn.
Kayn watched as the orb shot off in a certain direction at speeds that he was barely able to keep up with, but he managed to do so with a combination of his wings and wind mana. He was surprised by how far he had to travel, but it wasn't far enough from the battle site to be alarmed thankfully.
He was far off the initial course that he plotted back to Palatine, but he could always adjust his plans and attack his targets in a different order after this. All of the sudden, the orb dropped straight downwards through the thick tree line and Kayn followed.
Kayn watched as the orb dove straight down into the tangled roots of a large tree before he lost sight of it. Without wasting any time, he uprooted the entire tree system with earth mana. It may seem extreme, but Kayn wasn't about to stick his arm down somewhere unknown where a lich was confirmed to be.
Kayn searched the root system of the tree, eventually finding what he was looking for. There was an intricate pendant with a twisted orange and black mana core glowing as the center piece. Around the mana core, six smaller opaque orbs, similar to what Kayn removed from the physical body of Barabato were glowing with a dull light.
Lastly, the orb that Kayn had retrieved was seated at the lower tip of the pendant, strobed along with the colors of the mana core seated in the middle. He watched as the six smaller orbs removed themselves from the pendant and began to circle around each other in the air, slowly transforming into what looked like the beginnings of a skeletal structure.
Not wanting to give the lich the chance to resurrect himself, Kayn left the shadows he was hiding himself in and grabbed the pendant. It was painful to grasp though. Not a physical pain, but one that stemmed from his mind and soul, a defensive mechanism of the lich to ensure that no one would harm the pendant before his resurrection was completed.
Unfortunately for Barabato, Kayn's soul and mental defense were currently his strongest assets. If anything, his body was far behind what his mind and soul were capable of, hence why he was now having to work so hard to bring them all back into a balance.
With one hand gripping the pendant and another gripping the mana core, Kayn ripped them apart with brute force after having to exert most of his strength. At this point, the core began to dim, and Kayn quickly threw it into his Void Loop to keep it from degrading.
"AHHHHGG NOT LIKE THIS!" Barabato's voice screamed out from both the single orb remaining in the pendant and the orbs that were currently in the process of forming a new body.
"Sorry, I don't have time to waste playing with you again." Kayn spoke as he was now confident that Barabato's soul resided completely within the seven orbs currently.
He was only guessing, but it was possible that when the physical body existed, the split soul stayed within the fake mana core of whatever item was chosen as a phylactery. In the case of the physical body being destroyed, the fake core which held the soul in the physical body returned and the soul reunited within the fake core and whatever other materials were needed to restore a physical form.
This would leave the core functioning as the power source, like in a normal mage, with the soul using its power in order to restore themselves. It wasn't a good explanation, and Kayn was sure there were fore more intricate details involved, but it helped him with understanding what was required of him to permanently remove these foul creatures.
As Kayn was lost in thought, the pendant tried to break away from his grasp and fly away, but Kayn's grip was firm. Not wanting to waste more time on Barabato, he ignited the pendant in his grasp with Extinction Flames while simultaneously launching a jet of Exinction Flames like a flamethrower at the growing skeletal body.
Barabato's death screams echoed all throughout the forest, but there was no one to hear the final death throes of one of the oldest and most legendary existences on the continent.
...
Kayn hummed merrily to himself as he flew back to his original destination while glancing within the Void Loop at the two 6th stage cores he had already obtained. However, there was another feeling within him that he couldn't quite tell what it was.
It wasn't exactly disappointment, and he wasn't unhappy, but these fights just seemed like they were too easy. The two he had killed so far were both experts in their own right and if he put them on a scale, Barabato was probably stronger than Griselda. Yet, it took Kayn just a fraction of the time to kill Barabato as compared to Griselda.
Yes, he had gone up to the 4th stage since his fight with her, but this kind of boost to his power was unexpected and not something he originally planned for. He assumed fights would only be this simple once he reached the 5th stage.
Then again, he could attribute his wins to being able to take his opponents by surprise with the many tricks he had up his sleeves. Eventually, the others would come to learn some of what he was capable of and take more cautious and direct approaches to fighting him.
For now, what he could do, all he could do, was use his small advantages at this stage to continue surprising his enemies in order to take them out one by one. He could consume the cores he had already obtained, but he wanted to wait until he could fully absorb them using the mana gathering formation inside of the palace.
Kayn arrived just outside of the range of his next target, at least according to Yelena's notes, and sat down to meditate and have a little bit of food. He also needed to restore his body to peak condition. The fight with Barabato may not have lasted for days on end, but he took quite the punishment. His bones were still in the process of healing, and in some cases, reconstructing entirely.
He was missing a good portion of his lower right rib cage and the accompanying organs. His wings, while still functional, had tears in the webbing and some of the bones bent at weird angles. His face was deformed from taking so many direct punches to it and even a few teeth were missing.
Both of his forearms had web cracks running along both the radius and ulna as he used them to defend from Barabato's attacks. Even with his Eternal Blade Constitution and his bone and skin density increase from Geb, Barabato's attacks were just that strong.
Truly, if Kayn didn't have the benefits from Earth, he would never be able to even approach a 6th stage at this point, just a single hit would have probably killed him if he was the same as before. The tyranny of rank wasn't a saying for nothing.
Even with light fusion running constantly and his passive regeneration abilities working at full throttle, the lingering mana from Barabato was hindering his healing process, which was why he was injured even an hour after the conclusion of the battle.
As Kayn settled into a comfortable seated position, he drew and activated a quick concealment array before lowering his hood and flopping back onto the soft grass to rest. He may have thought the battles were "easy", but that wasn't exactly true. They were taxing on his body, especially this last fight against Barabato.
If he had to face Barabato and Varion at the same time? He would have had to escape using whatever means possible. He just wasn't ready to face two experts at their level at the same time yet.
He needed more power. He needed more cores. With this thought in mind, he grunted as he pushed himself into a lotus position. The pain was finally setting in as the adrenaline was wearing off, but a little pain never stopped him.
Kayn cast several healing spells of different elements to all work in conjunction with one another as he simultaneously activated the Void Star technique. Once his mana was full and his injuries were healed, it was time to take down another lich. This one, a mage and back line fighter who had a frightening contingent of undead.