Chapter 158: Six Ki Barriers

Howard finished training for the day and wiped his sweat off his forehead.

A young woman with a black dress on and two blonde pigtails sat down by his side while he looked out on the river. She was Bracston's youngest sister, and had no trouble being as forward as possible. When Howard finished, she pushed a few women aside and marched over to him.

Men that lived on one of the 1000 Mountains in 1000 Monster Valley had numerous Authoritarian women to choose from. Many of their fathers that fought constantly in the valley's below wanted to get a small cave or home on the edge of the mountain in order to live their lives peacefully. Of course, the pigtailed young lady with the big brown eyes already lived on the mountain. Because of this, all the other women watching Bracston battle had no choice but to let the young blonde go first.

She smiled and put her hour glass body right next to Howard while he smiled and accepted a water canteen from her hands. Looking at her, he felt oddly familiar, but also a strange sense of threat from her beautiful eyes. It was almost like heaven had gotten stuck in those two magical brown orbs, and he couldn't stop staring at her.

"My-my brothers are tough but a lot older than you. However, you are young and can almost keep up with them! Look behind me! All those women want to marry you! However, why do you smell like a human but I sense an Authoritarian in you."

"Heh, I'm a little strange. Can I not tell you?" Howard watched Bracston continue to fight with his three other brothers, and shook his head. "Anyways, how are you guys related? They never stop fighting all the time and you're so pretty!"

"Well, that's a strange comparison," The blonde girl, Inla, smiled and shook her head. "Heh, I fight all the time too except I need a husband now! Look at my hands. They're clean now, but it took me a week to wash out my brothers blood!"

"Stop bragging," Bracston smiled and tossed a small fish at Howard. "Cook this together, and get married or something! Stop taking so long!"

"Go sister!" Bractson's middle brother said, "Get him before he rules a mountain! Good luck!"

"You! You all are so bold!" Inla pouted and looked into Howard's eyes. "Howard, I'm-I'm not trying to marry you! I-I don't care about large mountains! I just want a man to talk to who knows how to be gentle! Not like my big brothers!"

"Heh, what's so wrong with being rough?" Howard smiled and created a small fire with an ignition of his Ki. He couldn't help but imagine Oclen training his hardest right now to beat him, and he kept seeing them in his head. Oclen's Eighteen Eyed Juggernaut form was simply terrifying. Every movement of his body looked perfected over centuries of training, but he was probably his age. How was he supposed to compare.

'I'll just train harder tomorrow,' Howard nodded his head and smiled at Inla while she leaned against his shoulder. She clearly hadn't talked to many men before, and her flirting was so obvious even Howard noticed. However, he couldn't help but smile because he was afraid of sleeping alone! Every night since he got here, he found a woman to sleep with! He smiled at her and gently closed his eyes.

"Inla, I know I just met you, but can we sleep like this?"

"Sure!" Inla flushed red and nodded her head. "You-you can lie on my lap if you like! It's warm! I mean! I can rub it if its too cold, but I promise I won't move much!"

Howard smiled and shook his head while hearing the punches of Bracston and his brothers crash against each other. "No, your shoulder is fine, hehe! I don't want the training with your brothers to be harder than it is already! However, maybe tomorrow I can sleep on your lap? If-if everything goes well, and no one dies."

"I'd like that," Inla blushed and watched Howard slowly fall towards her lap as soon as his eyes closed. "Idiot, just don't work so hard tomorrow! I can't trick you into marrying me if you're dead!" Inla sighed and brushed aside Howards hair and stared at his two long horns and his restful countenance slowly entering into sleep. "I promise-I promise tomorrow nothing bad will happen besides when I attack you in bed at night! Hmph, those other girls don't stand a chance!"

###

The next morning, 

Howard woke up to a large bang.

Bracston expected him to dodge his incoming fist before he woke up, but instead Howard instantly went flying into the river. He sighed and rolled out of the water only to find a group of Authoritarian women around him trying to help him up. This was not normal! This was definitely not normal!

"Haha! You're a hot commodity Howard. However, ladies, you know the rules. After the training," Bracston smiled while Renace gently shooed away the women trying to help him up. "Now, Howard, this is about to be the hardest training of your life? Do you mind if I go all out. Consider it a present for entering the family."

"Sure, the more pressure you put on me now, the better chance I have against the Arthraku! Don't hold back one bit!"

"I thought you might say that," Bracston's body began to glow with two strange layers of Ki that fluctuated around each other. It instantly made his incredibly muscular torso seem like a sharp blade about to be unleashed from its sheath. "Well, brothers, he said he wants it to be his hardest training yet. Don't stop until not a single drop of blood is left in his body!"

"I'm ready!" Howard took a deep breath and activated his Dark Ki to the maximum. "Come at me all at once, and don't hold back!"

###

Boom!

Howard bounced against a sharp rock and then flew straight into a tree. Behind him, Bracston appeared with three terrifying layers of Ki projecting around his body. It seemed with every shield he added, his strength increased by at least half a rank.

When they had started fighting, Bracston seemed like he was barely in the S rank, but once those barriers were activated he just got more and more terrifying. Stabbing outwards with his fist, Howard shot in the other direction. 

Howard couldn't even activate his Dream Ki and just kept getting hit again and again. However, for some reason, he had a smile on his face.

"I almost figured it out!" Howard spun in the air with just his regular Ki activated and dodged an incoming fist. A large leg shot over his head while a burst of energy nearly touched his cheek.

Boom! 

Howard flipped back after touching down on his foot and looked down at his torn white shirt. He had several hundred small cuts that were rapidly healing. However, he finally felt like he mastered it!

Bracston had told him about the Six Ki Barriers that had to be mastered in order to enter the SS rank. They were literally six barriers that you had to learn to stack on top of each other in order to create your own Ki Environment. It was basically six layers of extremely condensed Ki that when activated together greatly increased your strength. 

In order to enter the SS rank, you needed these six barriers in order to fully support the Ki Hearts inside of your body. With these barriers, a whole new host of techniques became available to you! Howard, frankly, wasn't even supposed to be able to activate even a single Ki Shield, but he was because of his Ki Heart Ring given to him by Demon King Earl.

His normal orange Ki instantly waved around his arm as it moved forward while he used Ki Transformation to create a powerful fist that spread outwards in four directions. With a large bang, Bracston's fist came out of no where from behind and crashed into Howard's Ki Fist. He instantly looked surprised and jumped back a single step. Unfortunately, Howard's improvement was simply too little. The next second, Renace kicked Howard lightly in the chest and he once again flew into the river.

He couldn't believe it! Even that wasn't enough!

"Damn it! You guys are too strong! I finally figured out that damn barrier thing and I still can't hurt you!"

"Ha! That's because we're like your eldest brothers now." Renace clapped his hands together and smiled at Howard. "Ha, with such a young bachelor in our midst. We might even let you meet two of our sisters! However, first, you must train with us for 10 more hours! You want to be our brother, then you have to be prepared to fight in your sleep! In fact, don't sleep, tonight we're kicking your ass until the morning!

###

Two weeks later, Oclen was finally satisfied with his training.

He finally decided to approach 1000 Monster Valley. However, even after finding Howrad's location, there was no way he was going to just attack. He wanted to know everything about 1000 Monster Valley. That way, if Howard escaped, he'd be able to turn every stone to find him!

'Macran has the best scouting ability out of all Arthraku in my generation. Not only can he move incredibly slowly and be unnoticed by even those in the peak SS rank, however, he can also use vibrations to sense what's going on above him.'

Macron had captured an Authoritarian called the Two Tongued White Chameleon. It was a fairly normal Authoritarian if it was young, but passed a certain age it developed the ability to not only mask its body, but to mask its Ki. This wasn't that impressive by itself, but it also had an extremely powerful ability to move through the earth because of its control of Earth Ki.

The Arthraku could use whatever Ki their Authoritarians could use. Some people argued that this made them weaker since they could never truly master just one type of Ki. However, considering they were the top ranked discovered Nation, this was actually a huge blessing! They knew the weaknesses of almost every element because they got to practice with each one! They also had the capability to hold between 5 - 10 Authoritarians in their body in the A rank! Only the Demon King had been able to match them in strength without fighting with other nations! There was no way they'd let another person like Howard exist!

Oclen impatiently tapped his foot before Maclan finally arrived. He shot out of the ground and instantly transformed into his human form. At the same time, he tossed aside a small Authoritarian he had in his arm. It instantly whimpered only to find a spike piercing into its legs.

"Make another sound, and you're dead," Oclen walked over to the small silver Authoritarian. It had extremely meek looking brown eyes, two small silver wings, with four orange legs and a large horn on its head, but seemed powerless in front of the Arthraku. "Now, who is this? Where did you find this Authoritarian, Maclan. You better have a good reason for taking her! You know how Authoritarians are about their children! All of them could attack us if you were followed!"

"I wasn't followed. Her father got killed and I just so happened to steal her away while the bigger Authoritarian was feasting on its victory meal. You could even say we're saving her."

Macran had searched far and wide for an Authoritarian of a certain type. Specifically, he wanted an Authoritarian that could fly because obviously they'd be the most likely to know about all the areas one could hide in 1000 Monster Valley. 

He witnessed two powerful aerial Authoritarians fighting, and just so happened to find his daughter hidden inside of a cavern in one of the valleys. "She probably knows everything we need to know and more."

"Ugh, well sorry little one," Oclen cracked his neck. "You're telling us everything you know whether you like it or not." Oclen's body started to change into an unfamiliar Authoritarian with only a single eye on its head. "Impression Steal, Activate!"

###

Howard smiled and walked over to Inla while five girls waited next to her. He wanted to smack himself because they were all so pretty! 

Unfortunately, he was so tired, he could barely look straight! 

"Hi girls. Would it be okay if only two of you stayed tonight?" Howard dropped down on a blanket in a small cavern and looked into six faces giggling around him. "I-I know I got Bracston's approval, but six sisters is too much even for me! Inla, can you just choose one sister and then lay down with me!"

"Of course," Inla gently pushed her lips into Howards before another girl kissed his other cheek. "Hehe, for a man to fully get my brothers approval is rare! I can't wait to see what you learned in the last two weeks! They-they wouldn't let us girls watch anymore after the third day, how rude!"

"I hope it will be strong enough to stop them. My new ability." Howard smiled and kissed Inla one more time. "Now, let's get some sleep okay? I-I have a feeling they're waiting for the perfect moment to attack, and I can't keep relying on your brothers to protect me forever."