That's why the best way to kill him is to ambush him alone. They must not wound him or fight him when his stamina is low. Which means they must not fight a prolonged battle with him.
As long as they don't give him a chance to pile up the boost from his ability, he will be easy to kill. Augustus showed how best to do it when he killed Paul while pretending to be someone who was far too weak to be a threat to the monk.
But these people don't know that. They believe that this person is truly Paul, as he looks like Paul, talks like Paul, and doesn't have an invisible weight pressing down on him.
His posture is just too straight to be Augustus. But they are not going to let him go just yet. The man explained, "We are a team formed to eliminate Augustus. We already have a way to identify him. As long as we check and see that you are not Augustus, we will let you go."
Friar Paul asked, "What method is this?"
They pointed at a guy behind them. "That's Radisson. He is an amplifier. He can tell what your ability is if he amplifies it. All you have to do is let him touch you."
"If you are not Augustus, you will get a free boost. It is just a touch. It requires nothing more from you. Then we will be on our way, no harm, no foul."
Kelvin looked at this Radisson. He knows that his ability is to amplify. But he has never heard about him being able to tell what ability someone has by amplifying them.
Not that that kind of information has been relevant. So he can't really blame the absence of the information when he was doing his research about his competitors. But it had become relevant now, and he has to make a decision to deal with it.
He shook his head and said, "I pity you weak people. Banding together to deal with a single person. If you don't face the difficulty on your own and learn from it, you will never grow stronger."
He said as he turned away from them, "I won't participate in this farce. I have better things to do."
The twenty-eight of them looked at each other. They gathered their courage and stepped up together.
Another person said, "Buddy. Don't make this difficult for us. We are on an important mission right now, so we can't back down. If you don't let us confirm your ability, we will fight you."
"We are not your match, but that doesn't mean we will give up. You will have to kill us and let down the hope of all the people watching. Don't be stubborn. Let us do this quick and easy."
More of them spoke, and they backed up what they said with actions. They actually moved to surround him. He could see both fear and determination to fight in their eyes. This made him take them seriously.
He is only taking their threat seriously. There is no way he is going to let someone touch him to determine what ability he has. Not only does he have the shape-shifter ability, he has other abilities that he is currently using.
Those are things he can't allow to be exposed. So if they are serious about their threat, it means that they are going to fight. It also means he has to determine how best to fight them.
"I can run, or I can eliminate some of them before I run."
Those are the main options for him. Surrendering is not an option.
So he said, "Fine. Let us get this over with."
The people surrounding him sighed in relief. They were not threatening him with their power since that was lacking. They had used public opinion to threaten him, and it seems to have worked.
They expected it to work, as Paul rarely kills. Most of his power would be tied up in fan count, and it would be bad for him to make his fans angry at him by obstructing a process to find the widely hated Augustus.
Now that he had capitulated to public opinion, they could do what they wanted and be done with it. So Radisson came forward to touch him.
Kelvin stretched forth his arm for him to touch. He stomped his foot on the ground angrily as he said impatiently, "Hurry up."
The force of his foot slamming the ground made it crack. The force was stronger than normal due to the weight he was bearing. It caused the crack on the ground to spread wider.
This scared the people surrounding him. They took a step back in fear. He used that opportunity to take off Radisson's head. Then he dashed to the nearest person and impaled them in the chest with a bone spear created from his arm.
They were hunting for Augustus, but the moment they found him, they couldn't believe it. It is because they couldn't believe that their plan worked.
The lady that was impaled through the chest coughed and shouted, "It is him. It is Augustus. I've got him."
She held on to the spear tightly so that the others would be able to pile on him. Unfortunately, the spear softened and slipped out of her hands. Then her head was cut off.
Kelvin passed by her corpse as he ran away. The remaining 26 chased after him. Unfortunately, they weren't fast enough, so they couldn't catch him. But they could keep up with him thanks to the imprints of his footsteps that he left in the ground as he ran.
The Burden of Respect was hell bent on dragging him to his grave, even if it had to do so indirectly. Kelvin couldn't run too quickly, or he would expose the fact that he had more strength hidden away.
That was a bad idea since no matter how he ran, they would still be able to track. In fact, by running faster, he would be leaving deeper imprints on the ground for them to follow.