Chapter 454 - Defending

Ning looked at the man's two daggers that were about 15 centimeters long and glinted yellow in the firelight.

They were so sharp and smooth that Ning could nearly see the reflection of everything around him. 

Suddenly, the daggers started moving. They no longer looked so sharp or smooth and instead looked overly fuzzy. 

'Is it moving?' Ning thought. That was what it seemed like. Like a fly's wing moving up and down, the dagger seemed to be moving up and down very rapidly. The assassin was making it vibrate.

'You can do that too, huh?' Ning thought in surprise. He really loved it when he saw the ingenuity of people in using their Aether. 

Suddenly, the assassin moved like a hunter in the night. Ning couldn't even react when he flew past him. By the time Ning realized what had happened, he felt a bit of coldness in places he shouldn't. 

He looked down and saw that his left arm had fallen off his shoulder. 

"Woah! How did you cut my arm so fast?" Ning asked. He couldn't believe how quick the attack was.

"Aether Emperors really are on a different level than an Aether King huh? That terrorist leader was strong, but he was nowhere near your level," Ning said as he turned around. 

When he did, he saw the Assassin move once again as he flew past him. Ning could feel himself losing all connection with his lower half, as his head started to slip through his neck.

The whole body fell onto the ground, while the assassin stood up straight in the fire looking at Ning with a look of disdain. 

Now that Ning was dead, he needed to figure out where he was and how he could return to any civilization. 

"Not so fast," Ning spoke. The man turned around and looked in horror as Ning stood up, neither his head nor his arms missing. 

"Yo-You Freak! How are you still alive? I even cut your head off," the man shouted. 

Ning looked a little surprised and said, "oh, I'm sorry. Were you under the impression that you could kill me? My bad, I should have let you know that there is nothing in this world that you can do to me and keep me dead."

His smile looked innocent, but the fear it struck on the assassin was beyond imaginable. 

Ning saw the fear in the assassin's eyes too and laughed, "Haha, did you believe me just now? Come on, don't fall for such obvious lies. Of course, I can die too."

The assassin was a little taken aback and started to get angry at Ning. He felt like he was made fun of by a kid. However, he wasn't so easily dissuaded by his words.

He had seen for himself the head and arms get cut off. Not to mention the bullet from last time. 'How is he doing all of this? Is this something only someone that is a Dual Awakener can do?' he wondered.

He carefully thought of ways to fight him. There were some ways that he could think of. He wasn't sure if that was possible or not, but he would have to try to find out. 

The first thing the assassin tried was cutting Ning into multiple pieces. He dashed forward with incredible speed with his two daggers that vibrated at a very high frequency. 

He had come to learn that such vibrations could make it very easy for him to cut off anything. 

Ning saw him start to move and put up both of his hands in time to protect himself. 

The dagger struck his left arm again, but it only cut halfway through this time. The assassin was surprised to see how strong Ning's arm had become all of a sudden. 'Dammit! Just how much Aether does he have to make this strong of a body?' he thought.

He jumped back and started thinking of other ways to hurt him now that physical harm would likely not do it.

Ning looked at his arm too in surprise. He wasn't surprised that I was intact, but rather that it had been cut in the first place. 

'A normal blade wouldn't have done that,' he thought. 'So there really is something beneficial to putting that vibration to the blade.'

Making it move back and forth like a saw would make any blade cut things easier.

The assassin put away his daggers before bringing them out again. Ning didn't realize that the assassin had switched daggers already. While using it as he did was beneficial to cutting, the dagger also got incredibly hot to the touch and would be uncomfortable for use afterward.

So, the assassin brought many pairs of daggers along with him during every journey. 

He held the new daggers in his hands again. They looked the same as the previous ones, but these ones were a little special. The handle of these daggers was wrapped in something different. 

The assassin strengthened up his body once more, but not to the same level as last time. Last time, he just needed to cut Ning. For that, he could move at the highest speed and not worry about the timing of the hit at all.

However, for this attack, he needed to be slow so that his brain could understand what was happening in front of him.

He dashed once again. Ning looked at him coming towards him and put up his arms again. However, he was surprised that the man didn't make his dagger vibrate again.

'Why?' he wondered. The dagger hit his arms once more, but it couldn't even break past his skin, let alone do any damage to him. 

He was about to say something when suddenly he felt shocked. Actual shock. The dagger sparked up as electricity flowed through him, frying him from the inside, making him fall to the ground.

The assassin kept on him, letting as much electricity as he could produce, and passed it along. The daggers he was holding were wrapped in rubber, so he himself was safe from the harm. 

Once he saw Ning stop moving, he jumped backward and kept his eyes open. He was sure that would hurt Ning a lot, but he wasn't sure if that could kill him.

Ning looked around with a bit of confusion. "Eh? Did he electrocute me?" he wondered as he searched for the assassin. 

The assassin was standing a little far away, looking towards Ning as well. 

'Aii… I didn't think this would be a problem at all,' Ning thought as he felt his body slowly regenerate back. He was currently looking around him using his energy vision, rather than his body's. 

His body was effectively dead and would require a bit more time to get back to being alive. Honestly, he hadn't expected it to take so much time to regenerate after his cells were electrified. 

It took him a full 30 seconds for his body to be even barely useful. He slowly stood up once he got control of the body back.

"That was quite good," Ning said while facing the assassin again. "I'm amazed by your skills, truly." 

"You still aren't dead. Would you mind telling me how you did it?" the assassin asked. 

"Uhh… it's quite simple actually. You spend 2000 years doing nothing but gathering energy, and then make yourself a body that never dies," Ning explained to the assassin.

The Assassin frowned. He thought Ning was toying with him again. He put his daggers back in and pulled out another pair of daggers. 

"Are those different daggers?" Ning asked, but the Assassin didn't answer. 

The assassins immediately threw the daggers towards Ning. Ning didn't bother to interfere with them as he wanted to see what they would do. 

The daggers struck him in the arm with incredible force. Ning waited for something to happen, but nothing did. 

"What was this supposed to be for?" Ning asked the assassin. The assassin grinned menacingly, but as time went on, his smile faded.

"Why aren't you dead yet?" the assassin asked.

"Hmm? Dea—" just as Ning spoke, he felt an intense headache that lasted for a few seconds before disappearing. 

"Wooh!" he shook himself. "Yikes, did you try to poison me just now? I was expecting you to fight with Aether, not some measly poison. Come on, you are disappointing me."

The assassin's eyes were beyond shocked. 'What the hell is he? How the hell is poison not working on him either?' he thought. He had never met anyone or anything as surprising as Ning. 

The assassin started truly fearing for himself. He brought out over 10 different daggers that flew in the air around him. 

He then started sending all of them towards Ning. Ning strengthened his body a bit, but aside from that, he did nothing. 

Ning watched as the assassin flawlessly controlled over 10 daggers at the same time while sending one after another to attack Ning. 

The strength of the daggers wasn't anything to scoff at either. Each of them hit him hard enough to cut his skin easily. The daggers flew around him, making numerous cuts on his body.

Ning let the attack happen for a while before deciding to stop it. He suddenly sent out his Aether to gain control of the daggers from the assassin. 

Seeing himself lose control of his dagger so easily, the assassin got scared. 

Ning's wounds started to heal as he played with the dagger in one hand. "That was not a bad trick. I can see how you would be successful at assassinating unsuspecting victims," he said as he threw the daggers back at the assassin. 

"Get ready," he said.. "I will start attacking now."