Chapter 109: Assassination

Chapter 109: Assassination

Sateron took a deep breath and released it.

A fine, pale blue mist surrounded his body, seeping into his pores and building his corpus to something more than its meager self. Finally, he was worth at least something.

For he had reached the subdivinity stage.

Or rather, as lower realm cultivators called it...

The first step of the diamond path.

Astrador nodded in what could barely pass as satisfaction, “I believe that will be enough.” He handed Sateron a pearly, slightly transparent white saber, and Sateron shuddered at the feeling the weapon gave off. The material was of the same rank as him, and its might was something he could feel coursing through the qi in his body.

The Great God touched the weapon, and fine inscriptions lined the blade's surface.

Sateron could recognize some of them. With these inscriptions, the weapon’s use became temporary, but every swing would hold several times as much cutting power as the concept of severing had been directly imbued into the edge.

Astrador concentrated, and a small, shiny, golden orb appeared in his hands.

Sateron’s eyes widened, and he gingerly grabbed the object, “What... What is this?”

“When you get relatively close to their position, consume it. You shall teeter on the border of being for a while, and the moment you interact with another, your existence will stabilize again. This should make you nigh-undetectable, but don’t take any chances.”

Sateron gulped at that. He was confident. His victory was assured, but the way his creator phrased that... Who exactly was Neave that he made even the greatest of gods act so cautiously?

Astrador lifted his gaze and looked past the barrier, “Kill Neave first. Make sure your strike is decisive and his death instantaneous. Do not allow him a chance to recover. The others are worthless. Even the most powerful among them is a pathetic worm at the divine spark stage. Once Neave is dead, the others will fall without issue.” After pausing and frowning briefly, he continued, “And make sure you destroy anything they have created...”

“...Especially if it is alive.”

***

Sateron ran through the obsidian forests, dodging and weaving through the sharp branches as he sought the clues of their location. His creator had imbued the knowledge of the last site he knew they were at, and Sateron swiftly made his way there.

After reaching his destination, he frowned. There was little, if anything, to go off when it came to discovering their tracks. So he calmed himself and breathed steadily, sensing the energy in the air. There was an incredibly faint presence.

Yet, that must mean they were close. Something was off, however. As far as the Great God could tell, the target could sense the range of his anchor.

Why would they remain so close to the border?

So he ran forward, following the same direction they went in and hoping to get another whiff of the faint energy.

***

Too much. There is far too much energy in the air.

Atmospheric energy contained loose qi particles and chaotic mixtures of spirit and life force released by the life and death of living beings. Such power took a long time and many lives to gather.

So why is it so thick here?

Things may be worse than even the Great God, in all his wisdom, had predicted.

Suddenly, Sateron had to stop.

What the hell is that?

There was a faint glimmer among the obsidian brush. It was hard to notice with the lack of light and all the thick growth in his way, but that couldn’t obscure the vision of someone at the subdivinity stage.

Yet, it wasn’t the glimmer he saw first. It was the intense life force flowing through these crystals. A shudder went through Sateron’s body as he realized what he was looking at.

Those things are alive.

Looking further, past the tiny crystalline shards, he realized precisely what they were. His stomach dropped, and fear gripped his heart.

It is... It is a brush. Much like these obsidian plants growing around me. But how? Where did they come from?

Astrador hadn’t said much about why Neave had to die or who he was. However, it became increasingly clear to Sateron that his mission was far more deadly than he initially expected.

Should he return to Astrador first? Perhaps updating him on the situation was more critical than marching onward.

Sateron slapped himself with all his might.

You idiot! You doubt the wisdom of the great god!? He knew this would happen, and he entrusted me with my mission! You can do this, you fool. You were granted the tools you need. Just calm down, and do your job.

He paused for a moment and considered a plan. This golden orb would allow for near-perfect stealth, but he could not use it haphazardly. The longer he remained in the state it would put him in, the less likely it was that he could return to complete existence again.

There was no margin for error. Mistakes were impermissible. So he took a deep breath again and thought it through.

It was time to do some scouting.

***

He hadn’t been focusing on sensing their position yet, as his entire focus was simply on moving through the cave. Now, he found himself before some sort of potent barrier.

What the hell was happening here? The center seemed to be completely isolated from the outside. Not a shred of energy flowed out of it.

No... That wasn’t entirely correct. There was a space where something akin to a door was placed. A door wholly created out of crystallized spirit. Yet another horrifying discovery that once again clarified why Astrador wanted this person dead, but Sateron couldn’t afford to be shocked now.

He calmed himself and regained his focus. Jumping through more of the thick growth, he found himself right before the entrance. His entire being focused on the slight slit the door permitted, and he used the single most potent movement technique he knew, which allowed him to teleport from one location to another, regardless of how minuscule the passage between the two locations was.

His spirit screamed, and his body twisted in the air, spinning four times until finally...

He appeared on the other side. Immediately, deep fear grasped his heart as he felt the presence of the being standing in the center of the room. That creature...

The instant he was done with his target, that thing had to die as well. His eyes darted through the room, and he immediately spotted everyone inside. As the others observed, a young woman and a man, the one furthest down the path, were fighting over something.

Something was unusual about everyone in this room. Their physiques were ridiculously advanced, showing levels of perfection and balance that would be envied even in the higher realms. The weapons they held were all made of ordinary material, yet they radiated intimidating power.

Those... Those quasi-spirits...

Even the way they carried themselves was impressive.

And his target, the one he was hunting... Was a child at the very beginning of the foundation realm. The absolute start of the path.

Calling this person a child was... Questionable, as the sheer mass of muscle that made up his body made it difficult to tell his age from behind. He wore a crown and what looked like black glasses. He was the only one without a weapon out of all the people in the room.

Everything was strange about this individual. Astrador had imbued the memories of his looks directly into Sateron’s mind, yet it was apparent that this person had changed drastically since then.

Sateron froze, literally suspending his body in the air just a little behind his target. If the others were impressive in how they held themselves, then his target was horrifying. Something about even his exposed back screamed of danger and death.

Despite using one of the most advanced stealth methods in existence, Sateron felt entirely exposed. He couldn’t stop his body from shaking, and the grip on his sword grew tighter, slightly too strong to maintain a perfect stance.

Something concrete, an opening, was necessary, so he could catch his target off guard, however slight. So he waited. The other two fought, and the girl yelled at the man, kicking him in the face and throwing him against the wall.

Sweat flowed down his body, and he had to grip a drop with his qi manipulation to prevent it from flowing off his chin and striking the ground.

The girl said something to the man, yet, Sateron kept his focus on his target, minimizing attention to all external stimuli. After a few seconds, the fight stopped, and Sateron’s heart sank as he thought he would lose his chance.

However, after the girl said something else to the man, Neave’s guard dropped a single degree for a single instant. Sateron, without any hesitation, immediately used a movement technique to appear directly behind his target’s back, swinging the sword with the fastest technique he could manage, and the edge of the blade cut right through his target’s neck without any resistance.

Neave’s head flew through the air and dropped to the ground several meters away. His primary mission accomplished, Sateron instantly turned his attention to the plant sitting in the middle of the room.

A critical mistake.

A minuscule thread of muscle extended from his target's severed head and pulled it right back, attaching it to the body, although it landed the wrong way around.

Neave grabbed his head, screwing it back the right way and turning to face his assailant, “Who the fuck are you?”

Without any panic and with focus snapped right back to his target, Sateron cut through his body, bisecting him at the waste and splitting his arms, then he swung it again, severing his body vertically.

Slash after slash landed, and his target was turned into little more than a pile of chunks of flesh.

Violet light lit up behind Sateron, and his attention was pulled back for a fraction of a second.

In that slight moment, his target’s body extended hundreds of tendrils of flesh as it pulled itself back together, reassembling the body in moments.

“I said, who the fuck are you!?”

The red-haired man screamed, “Neave, careful! That...”

“First step of the diamond path, yeah, I can tell.”

The violet light vanished, being merely a decoy, and Sateron unhesitatingly returned to slashing his target to bits. Neave’s body was peculiar, but that didn’t mean Sateron’s weapon was ineffective. So he swung the sword again.

A faint flash of lightning lit up beneath Neave’s skin, and his body twisted, turning so frighteningly fast that even Sateron’s quickest technique couldn’t catch him before he fully evaded the strike.

Sateron tried pulling the saber back into another swing, but this time, he felt a faint resistance that seemed to be originating from his target's crown.

Out of nowhere, Neave’s open palm swung at Sateron’s face, slapping him so hard he felt as if his soul had been knocked out of his body. Left eye blind, teeth shattered, ear ringing, Sateron struggled to regain himself as a punch flew as his torso.

The knockback threw him away toward the wall behind him, yet, before he could hit it, a sizeable obsidian block rose out of the ground, and he collided with that instead, shattering it into pieces and collapsing his momentum.

“Phew, that was close. I almost broke the spirit dome there. Also, damn, I’m so strong now! I could probably kick Carfen’s ass, no problem!”

The nonchalant attitude of his target spoke louder than his words.

His mission was over. He had failed.

No...

He never stood a chance of success, to begin with.