My Clan Cultivation System: Only My Clan Can Cultivate

Chapter 86: The Gravity Trap

Four masked individuals in dark hooded cloaks rode silently through the trees, their horses keeping a steady pace just off the main dirt road as they followed Ian and his group.

​"Mmm... hey, sir. Don’t you think that we are getting way too close to them? They might be able to spot us," one of the assassins, Number 74, whispered to Number 20, who was riding at the front.

​"They are just kids, 74. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. The only thing I am actively wary of is that young Mage they have riding with them," 20 muttered, keeping his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "It’s not usually hard to kill a Mage if you catch them off guard, but there are some who are just incredibly annoying to deal with."

​"Whatever you say, boss," 74 shrugged, also looking ahead.

​"Mmmmm?!" 20 suddenly frowned, pulling the reins of his horse to slow down.

​"What’s wrong, sir?" 74 asked, pulling his horse to a stop beside him.

​"It’s just... I can still see them up ahead in the dark, but I don’t feel their presence anymore," 20 said slowly, his voice laced with suspicion.

​"How is that even possible?" 74 asked in disbelief.

​"Sir, I think it’s exactly the handy work of that Mage you were so wary about," Number 55 chimed in from the back.

​"Yeah, you might be right... they must have sensed us tailing them, and they are desperately trying to run away by actively hiding their presence with magic," 20 analyzed.

​"So what do we do, sir?" 74 asked.

​"Let’s speed up immediately. We can’t have them run away. And this time, if we catch up to them, we kill them for sure! A mere Third-Circle Mage using wide-area concealment magic? Hehehe... she will completely deplete her mana pool so fast trying to hide four people and four horses! Let’s hurry it up!"

​Following their leader’s command, the assassins suddenly spurred their horses, increasing their speed drastically to close the gap.

​"What the...?!" 20 gasped in shock.

​"What is it, sir?!"

​"They suddenly vanished! I can’t even see their silhouettes anymore!" 20 yelled, violently stopping his horse. The other three assassins skidded to a halt beside him.

​"Vanished?! What do you mean they vanished?! They were just right in front of..."

​Before 74 could even finish his confused sentence, a loud, echoing feminine voice began chanting from deep within the dark forest right next to the road.

​"Gravas mor, terrath jin. Valen kora, serya..." Sarah slowly stepped out of the tree line, her eyes glowing faintly. Both of her hands were raised, heavily leaking twisting, dark purple particles of pure mana. Instantly, the empty space directly above the heads of the four masked assassins started violently twisting and warping.

​"Tch... it’s the damn Mage! Everyone, scatter!!" 20 roared, desperately kicking his horse to dash to the side.

​But before the assassins could even move an inch, three magical trigger words left Sarah’s lips, overlapping each other with heavy, echoing power.

​"Gravity Field!!"

​BOOM!

The dark, twisting distortion above their heads instantly slammed downward with crushing, suffocating weight! The heavy horses neighed loudly in panic as their legs instantly buckled, completely snapping under the immense pressure. The four assassins were violently thrown from their saddles and forced brutally onto their hands and knees against the dirt road. Two of them even collapsed completely flat on their stomachs, completely unable to lift their bodies.

​"Gravity Magic?!" 20 gasped through gritted teeth, thoroughly shocked by the crushing weight pinning his shoulders down.

"Isn’t this a rare attribute that only a tiny number of Fourth-Circle Mages are actually able to use?!" he groaned, violently forcing his head up to glare at Sarah. ’And not every Mage can even use it when they reach the Fourth Circle! It’s incredibly rare! And to be able to use it at 3rd circle!’

"Wow... she really is absolutely amazing to just casually use Gravity Magic like that and just after using illusion magic," Isaac commented, gracefully sliding down from his horse. He turned to Zena, who was also dismounting. "By the way, how is she actually able to use it anyway? Isn’t Gravity Magic something super rare, basically on the same level as Space Magic? It’s not something you can see everyday even in Magic Empire. "

​"Well, it is her natural Affinity," Zena explained, watching Ian already walking casually towards the crushed assassins.

​"Affinity?" Isaac asked, confused.

​"Well, you know from your books that most Mages only awaken their true elemental Affinity—or finally figure out what their specific Affinity is—when they successfully reach the Seventh Circle, right?" Zena asked, and Isaac just nodded slowly.

​"Well, there are incredibly rare, generational cases when a Mage is uniquely able to discover their Affinity before they reach the Seventh Circle. My sister is one of those incredibly rare cases," Zena said proudly.

"And let me tell you, knowing your Affinity beforehand has massive perks! You can effortlessly use high-tier magic of that specific affinity at much lower levels. She can completely forget about wasting time learning basic elemental spells like fireballs and lightning strikes because Gravity Magic will give her massive combat advantages in the long run."

​Zena grinned widely. "And my absolute favorite part about it is that I constantly used her Gravity Magic field when I was at the lower stages to help me break through to the Fourth Stage of Aura! Let me tell you, enduring this heavy spell will actively stimulate your body and refine your muscles like crazy!"

​"Hey! You annoying assholes!" Sarah yelled, straining slightly. "I know that you are deeply impressed, but can you please hurry it up?! I don’t think I can hold them all down for very long doing this!"

​"Well, don’t you have those little blue mana potions you always carry around in your pockets?" Zena teased.

​"For your information, let me refresh your stupid memory big brother! We left the town in a desperate hurry, and I didn’t even grab a single mana potion!!" she yelled back at him.

​"Let’s just get this over with," Ian said coldly, stepping directly into the dark purple distortion of the Gravity Field.

​"Heyy!!! Wait, you are going to...?!"

​Before Sarah could finish yelling a warning, she and Zena were completely shocked to see Ian casually walking perfectly upright inside the crushing field, acting as if the heavy gravity was absolutely no different from the regular air outside.

​"How...?" Zena gasped in pure shock.

​"What do you mean?" Isaac asked.

​"It’s just... even I find it incredibly difficult to walk properly inside her field, even though I train inside it all the time!" Zena said, his jaw dropping. "Just exactly how strong is his body to be able to just casually walk through crushing gravity like it’s absolutely nothing?!"

​"Mmmmm," Isaac didn’t respond. He only stared quietly at Ian as his brother walked up to the closest pinned assassin.

​The assassin, Number 20, was violently trembling all over, desperately struggling just to lift his head from the dirt.

​Ian reached down and roughly yanked the dark mask off the man’s face, revealing a middle-aged man with a nasty knife scar across his cheek, glaring up at him with pure hatred.

​"I’m gonna ask you a simple question, and I hope you answer me truthfully," Ian demanded coldly.

​"Fuck off," the assassin spat.

​The exact moment he said that, a thick, white, bubbly foam started pouring heavily out of his mouth. His eyes rolled back into his skull, and his body went completely limp. He died just like that, and the other pinned assassins didn’t even scream for him.

​"He died? Just like that?" Ian asked, visibly surprised by the sudden suicide.

​"That’s high-tier assassins for you. They have poison capsules hidden in their teeth so they can instantly kill themselves if captured. It is vastly better than suffering torture for information," Isaac stated, not surprised by the dark development at all.

​Ian then moved to the second assassin lying completely flat on the ground. This one wasn’t even attempting to struggle against the gravity; she was just lying perfectly still. Ian crouched down and roughly removed the mask.

​"Sigh... this woman already killed herself too," Ian sighed, looking at the same white foam leaking from the corpse’s lips.

​"Already?!" Zena said in surprise. "Wow, these guild guys really don’t play around with death. They really are professionals to the bone."

​Ian then moved to the third assassin lying nearby. He wasn’t moving at all either. Ian crouched again, forcefully pulled the mask off the man’s face, and saw the exact same foam leaking from his mouth.

​"Hahahahah!!!!"

Ian suddenly burst out laughing like an absolute maniac, resting his hand over his forehead as his shoulders shook with amusement.

​"What the hell is up with him...?" Sarah asked nervously, looking at Isaac as Ian laughed like a crazy person.

​"How would I ever know what’s happening inside his crazy mind?" Isaac muttered, genuinely shocked by how unhinged Ian was acting.

​Ian stopped laughing. His eyes turned deadly cold as he suddenly lifted his heavy fist high into the air above the third "corpse."

​"You made a single, fatal mistake, you know!" Ian yelled down at the unmoving body. "You let a tiny fraction of your intense bloodlust leak out! And completely dead people do not have bloodlust!!"

​Just after saying that, Ian threw a brutal, full-power punch directly at the corpse’s head!

​SPLUT!

Blood splattered everywhere across Ian’s clothes as his fist crushed into the target.

​"HEY!! What the hell is up with your cousin punching a dead corpse like that?!" Zena screamed at Isaac in absolute horror.

​"Hahaha... I see! So that’s what it was!" Isaac suddenly started laughing too, mirroring Ian’s exact crazy behavior.

​"Hey... Sis... are all the people in the Thorne family really this completely crazy...?" Zena whispered to Sarah, who was still maintaining the gravity field with a completely shocked look on her face.

​"Well, I guess that one really is fully dead now. But just to be absolutely sure, let me go check the other ’dead’ also..." Ian said coldly, standing up from the bloody mess.

​But before Ian could even take a step toward the first assassin he had checked, Number 20 suddenly erupted from the dirt!

​BOOM! A suffocating, thick Fourth-Stage Aura exploded from 20’s body, aggressively pushing back against Sarah’s heavy gravity!

​"Dammit... this is exactly what I get for doing a high-tier job with completely inexperienced trash! You really screwed us over by acting too cocky, 74!" 20 cursed angrily at the body Ian just smashed.

He slowly forced himself to stand upright inside the Aura field, though his legs were clearly struggling against the crushing weight. He glared down in disgust at the bloody corpse Ian had just crushed.

​"Wow... would you look at that! A dead corpse waking up from the dirt and talking!" Zena slurred, pointing a finger with a completely funny look on his face.

​"..."

​Everyone in the group just stared at him in dead silence.

​"Really? You actually had the confidence yo say that out loud?" Isaac groaned, slowly taking a step away from him in embarrassment.

​"SIGH..I guess you are still drunk, huh?" Sarah sighed tiredly, rolling her glowing eyes.

​"What’s wrong with what I just said?! And I am NOT drunk!!" Zena yelled defensively. "I’m just trying to lighten the mood."