365 Hunting The Pawns

'That damn Crane really needs some disciplining!'

Hovering on the greatsword as it flew, a guy with a hideous scar that ran over one of his eyes grumbled with an irritated expression.

He, Cade, was currently heading to his own hideout to report the details of his failure thanks to that haughty guy's out of bounds action, so he naturally was infuriated. It had been more than a day since he went to get the captive and failed so he steeled his resolve to just get over with it.

'I really should…'

Suppressing the urge to expose Crane's identity as Dark Fire as he remembered how that guy acted when he reported his failure, Cade tried to clear his mind, he would have to suffer some setbacks thanks to that, but it would be over for him if he exposed everything and screwed up the plan…

However, as he suddenly sensed someone moving near to him, Cade controlled his sword essence to stop the greatsword as he jumped to the ground and took hold of it as he rested it on his back.

"Who is there?"

Releasing his sword essence around to increase his perception, Cade asked with a serious expression on his face. Luckily, he was only halfway to his destination and not that close, the place he was just heading to couldn't be exposed or that would spell out his doom.

"Oh, it's you Roade? Did you follow me because you needed my help with something?"

Letting out a breath of relief deep inside, Cade eased his expression as he smiled. It was one of the elders he usually took good care of, so it shouldn't be much of a trouble to get rid of him and continue as planned, he just had to take a small detour.

"Is it really true senior? Did you really betray the sect?!"

Seeing the distressed expression on Roade's face, Cade's heart sank as he maintained his expression and tried to keep his calm…

"Hmmm? What do you mean? You already know that I have a task to finish for the sect, just head back for now and stop with the jokes, haha…"

It had already been a few years since he decided to become a subordinate to the demons for the sake of his own safety, so it was naturally weird to get questioned about something similar like this, he really doubted Roade knew much, but it obviously didn't seem like a normal situation.

"Just tell me the truth senior, there is no way you would do that, right?"

'Is someone screwing with me?'

He had only contemplated the idea of exposing Crane, yet somehow, he was faced with a similar situation, the most possible scenario would be that Crane actually screwed him over by throwing a few words for Roade to get at him for trying to slightly threaten him in the end.

'That piece of shit… I guess there is no other way around it.'

"Ah… I really liked you as a junior and planned to help you a little later, but it can't be helped…"

'I will have to finish him up.'

With a helpless look on his face, Cade already started his sword technique's sequence. Normally, he would have tried to just shrug it off or make the target forget using a special method, but with how the great wave was going to start very soon, the global order was to get rid of all irregularities. He had to make him vanish and cover him up with a mission or something similar for the little time left, any simple problem would lead to a disaster on his side.

'At least he didn't seem to have told someone else from how anxious he is. I will really make sure Crane regrets his stupid pranks…'

However, as soon as he was about to move his sword to swiftly cut the neck of Roade, his smile suddenly vanished as he finally noticed that he was…

"So it was true… two of my sect's Grand Elders have also fallen to the demons' side, this is really a big smudge of shame in our history…"

'This is…'

As the lamenting voice let out a sigh, Cade's expression turned into one of despair…

"Master…?"

"You still dare call me as your master? Do you have no shame?"

Hurriedly slapping his chest as a little shattering sound could be heard, Cade turned around as he laid his eyes on the source of the voice.

"Trying to call out to your fellow traitor? Really? Do you think this was all something that happened by chance?"

The atmosphere started getting heavy as the speaker's sword essence started spreading around Cade, who had completely realized that he was done for as Roade's presence seemed to have vanished. He was the target of a probe and kill mission led by the sect master himself, the Supreme Sword…

"You don't need to worry, he is going to join you very soon if he isn't already waiting for you, it wasn't pleasant knowing you, Pest."

Letting go of the crystal pieces that he just crushed to call for help as he removed his hand from his chest, Cade's vision had already turned black…

`~~`~~`~~`

[ Congratulations! Preliminary cleansing of demon pawns had been achieved! ]

[ You have managed to achieve the first step for Objective 2 of the 'Demon's Advent' quest! ]

[ Reward is withheld until the complete objective is achieved... ]

'Hmmm?'

It had been less than 2 days since the meeting concluded after a plan was set and the first phase was launched, only those who had managed to finish their part were currently here.

I was still within the meeting room, sitting on a chair beside Blade, as I out of nowhere suddenly received a small stream of system notifs…

"I had already gotten rid of those on my side, how is it for the rest?"

"More than half are already back to the hall, the rest reported they were done and they are on their way back…"

'I see…'