by Pegaz A
There was deadly silence.
Jonathan’s icy expression immediately became clouded with absolute, blood-freezing horror.
“What… What the hell are you on about?” he stuttered, trying his best to mask his flustered demeanour with disdain. “I’ve never even been to the Anti-Assassin Sect’s planet. I didn’t even know the sect had been destroyed! Where did you hear word of this?!”
I almost slipped up just then. I was about to say I wasn’t near the planet when it got blown up. They might not know the planet’s gone. As an innocent cultivator just wandering about the universe, I shouldn’t know when it happened either. That sentence almost sentenced me to death.
The man threw the parchment to Jonathan.
“Read it,” he spat. “This is all the proof you need. We are here on justifiable grounds. You can’t shout that we are thieves with this, and the town is safe as we’ve locked down the space surrounding the auction hall with runes.”
Jonathan looked around and noticed for the first time that the entire building was being evacuated. He spotted the runes being put into place in his Scan, Adventurers Guild staff members standing just outside to guard them. All of the innocent people and staff members filed through the doorways.
Soon, the whole place was empty.
Jonathan clenched his fist into a tiny ball.
Steeling his nerves, he reached down and scooped the parchment off the floor. He skimmed it through but found there was too much adrenaline coursing through his veins to make sense of the words scribbled onto the page. Mustering all the nonchalance he could, he tossed the parchment aside like it was an old shoelace.
“Sorry, not really my style of reading material.” He drew his nano swords from their sheaths and smiled. “It’s also not my style to be dragged anywhere without kicking and screaming along the way.”
Chapter 42
Two Minutes
All twelve of the Rank 9 people stood their ground. They watched their target with dagger eyes, not so much as blinking.
Jonathan was still smiling as he spoke again.
“So, you all want to come one at a time or all together?”
One man on the far left side grew angry.
“Brat,” he called out. “We need only one of us to subdue you.”
“Oh?” Jonathan turned his head and looked directly at the man. “You want to be the one, then?”
And so, it began.
Gritting his teeth, the man rushed towards Jonathan, removing his greatsword from its sheath. Within milliseconds, the man was close enough to his target and swung his sword down in a mighty show of strength. Unlike most heavyset fighters, this fighter showed no lack of speed as he travelled with the same lightness of a feather sweeping across a winter breeze.
In the breadth of that millisecond, Jonathan raised his long sword with his right hand to block the attack and swung his short sword in a hooking motion. As their attacks collided, Jonathan aimed his short sword directly at the man’s lungs. It was a long shot, and he had everything to lose. This was a real life-or-death battle.
The greatsword kept on travelling as it met the sword. The Rank 9 man thought his attack was too powerful to be blocked and that he’d broken through Jonathan’s guard, but unfortunately for him, that was not the case.
Jonathan’s nano sword completely sliced through the greatsword.
Sidestepping to his left side as the greatsword was split in half, his sidestep did not interrupt his short sword’s hooked strike and the sword hit its target. With unbelievable quickness, a burst of blood sprayed out from the man’s open wound.
It took a full two seconds for the man to process the pain. When he did, his screams could be heard from outside the arena, blood-curdling and raw. He had expected his strengthened cells throughout his whole body to block the sword, but now his mind was only flooded with pain and regret.
Jonathan’s longsword swung at the man’s neck, taking full advantage of his opponent’s shock. In the two seconds that it took for the man to scream out in pain, Jonathan’s blade rushed at its target, completely beheading him.
As the head flew in the air, the other eleven people poised to make a move, but Jonathan’s longsword changed course and split the head in half.
Stashing the longsword back inside his Storage Space, Jonathan ripped the man’s soul from his skull, accidentally carving some brains out as well. He instinctively moved to shove the soul into his mouth with his gory fingertips, but as his hand approached its target, the rest of the fighters made their move.
He dropped the soul and teleported away.
One man used what looked like Life Power but with a light blue colour. The strange power came out of the man’s forehead and he used the strange power to guide the soul back inside the brain of the decapitated man.
Is that… Soul Power? Rank 8 and above generate that while strengthening their soul. It’s got to be Soul Power.
The first man who had initially addressed Jonathan stood before him.
“What was it that you were going to do with his soul? Eat it?” His resounding voice somehow struck a chord deep within Jonathan, captivating him completely. “That’s a demonic technique. Even without knowing the truth about the Anti-Assassin Sect’s destruction, you will now be arrested and detained for eating souls.”
Jonathan’s face twisted into a look of disgust before quickly regaining his composure. As if to spite his own far-off emotions, he cackled.
“Who said it’s demonic?” he asked, mocking the man openly. “Is your opinion the only valid one in the universe? What you call demonic could be the norm for cultivators on the other side of the universe. They might even call your cultivation technique demonic, too.”
“You have quite the silver tongue,” the man growled. “You speak as if I’ve not been to the other side of the universe.”
“No, no, no,” Jonathan interrupted. “I mean the OTHER, other side of the universe.”
The man completely ignored him. Without taking an eye off Jonathan, he spoke to the rest of his group standing behind him.
“He uses incredible speed to attack, but no attacking or defensive techniques. His blades are powerful enough to kill without technique, so concentrate on dodging his swords.” The man’s expression had not once changed, still somewhat bored yet completely focused on his target. “Watch out for his speed and you’ll survive.”
Nodding, the rest of the group spread out and prepared to gang up on the man.
Jonathan saw this and instead of fighting, he tried to teleport away.
BAM.
He’d crashed right into a red coloured but see-through wall. It must have been the effect of the runes that he’d been warned of. Knitting his brows, he touched the wall but couldn’t pass through it.
He tried teleporting to the hotel room, but he hit the wall again.
Even my teleport can’t get through. No, no, no, I am not going down like a rat trapped in a cage. I’ve got to use my head. Maybe if there was a small hole in this wall then the teleport would get through.
Jonathan took out his nano long sword from his Storage Space and stabbed the red coloured wall. To his utmost terror, the sword only pushed the wall back. The blade couldn’t cut it.
What the hell is this made from?! Is this a concentrated form of Life Power? But my nano sword can cut through Life Power, too! At least, so far, it has… If these walls were made from Life Power, then it must be extremely dense!
Heart racing out of pure anxiety and adrenaline, Jonathan turned around and saw his attackers had completely surrounded him. With his Scan, he could see the Rank 9 he’d cut up was still alive, but in pieces. It might take months of healing to get back to full strength with everything attached.
The only way to kill a Rank 9 is to remove the soul, destroy the brain completely, or with an attack strong enough to disintegrate the entire being like back on the Anti-Assassin’s planet. This is going to be hard.
Behind Jonathan’s back, he created
a thick rope made of all 1 million threads. As one of the ten men stepped forward, the rope launched out at him in a surprise attack.
Opening the system, Jonathan turned on the Absorb option as the thick rope wrapped around the man. The absorb option was unable to destroy substances such as nano metal, but he wondered if it could work in this sort of scenario. He was desperate enough to find out.
The other nine were caught off guard by the attack, but as the rope spun their comrade around, they were horrified.
The man’s skin grew wrinkly almost immediately; he didn’t even have the strength to scream as his teeth, eyes, and fingernails aged into ash. His body became thinner and thinner and the rope tightened its grip on the body.
After only half a second, he disappeared completely. The only thing left was his skin and clothing that fell onto the ground.
Oh.
I got 90 million Life Power from him.
A Rank 9 level 9 is worth almost an hour and a half of my time, then.
Letting the adrenaline take full control, Jonathan launched the same rope at the nearest man, who was frozen like a deer in headlights. Still horrified by what he’d witnessed, he was caught off-guard as the rope threatened to wrap around him.
But the man’s teammate swung his sword and chopped the rope in half before it could so much as ruffle the man’s robes.
“That rope sucks the Life Power, energy, and everything you have!” the teammate cried out, temperament a bit feistier than the others. “Don’t let it touch you! Stay on your guard, idiots!”
The feisty teammate stood between Jonathan and his previous target. Still looking utterly overtaken by shock, it took all he had to remain afloat. The feisty teammate had his blade at the ready, eyes only fixed at Jonathan.
Jonathan smiled sweetly and said two words:
“Kill him.”
The men before Jonathan knitted their brows and spun around, thinking their target had an accomplice helping him.
“AH!”
The strangled noise came from within their group. Finding its source, they were once again taken over by pure terror.
The man who had just escaped Jonathan’s rope attack had his blade buried deep in the back of the feisty comrade who stood between them.
Jonathan had used his Memory Manipulation skill with his threads. The larger rope had been a decoy. He couldn’t help but cackle at how well he’d played his opponents.
The manipulated man was struck down by his former teammates in the blink of an eye. The man with the blade wedged into his back tried to help in the attack, but couldn’t do much as the blade had pierced through a vital part of his spine. As the corpse of the manipulated man dropped onto the ground below, the injured fighter let loose a fiery roar before sinking into another comrade’s arms.
“Well, look at that.” Jonathan smiled. “It’s only been about two minutes since you guys have attacked me, and two of you are dead while another two are incapacitated. There are only eight of you left. That’s not a good record for your team, is it? You sure you want to do this? I can let you walk away.”
“Shut up, demon!” the injured man yelled. “We’ve encountered a setback but your tricks won’t work anymore!”
“Says the one who was literally stabbed in the back.” Jonathan scoffed down at him, which only fuelled his anger more.
The leader of the group, the man who first presented the parchment to Jonathan, moved forward. He placed a hand on the chest of the fiery injured fighter. After a brief moment of eye contact, the leader turned back around to address his teammates.
“Avoid his swords. Do not make contact with that rope. Watch out for his speed. He can’t fight forever. We will outlast him in this fight.”
Chapter 43
The Rune
Jonathan laughed.
“I can do this all year long and still have enough strength to beat you again.” He tried to sound as casual as he could, feigning confidence to his best. “As a matter of fact, the rope trick absorbs your Life Power and transfers it to me. If I ever run low, I’ll just capture one of you and gain it all back.”
Some of the members went pale, but the leader held his ground.
“Ignore him.” His deep voice had an eerily calm presence. “It might not be a bluff, but there’s no way he can fight all of us continuously. Avoid the rope and the swords, and we will prevail.”
While this was happening, Jonathan was weaving a single thread through their ranks. He carefully made its way to the injured, fiery-tempered fighter who was on the floor resting behind his teammates. The thread was smaller than what the naked eye could see; even a Rank 9 person would need to concentrate hard to sense its presence.
As the thread touched the incapacitated man, Jonathan used the Memory Manipulation skill on him and whispered his order.
“Don’t make a single movement or sound.”
A few more threads crept silently towards the man and absorbed the elements from his body. It was a much slower process than Jonathan’s previous victim. Jonathan wanted to be as discreet as possible.
Although the fiery man’s eyes bulged and watered like he wanted to scream for help, he heeded John’s orders. Visions of his life flashed before his eyes, past lovers come and gone, happy times, sad times… It all faded to black. His skin soon crinkled up and he crumbled to ash in his teammate’s arms.
“C-Cody!”
The cry drew everyone’s attention to the teammate who now carried nothing but the skin and clothes of a fallen fighter.
Jonathan’s smile was ice cold.
“Not a single one of you even noticed,” Jonathan spoke in a slow tone, voice stretching every syllable like it was taffy. “Cody, was it? Well, do you want to know how Cody died? Or maybe I can just show you instead...”
“STAND YOUR GUARD!” the leader barked at his teammates. “That rope is behind this! We need to rush him! NOW!”
A few of their team members were overcome with fear and wanted to run, but their leader’s words steeled their nerves like never before. They gritted their teeth and followed orders to rush their enemy.
Seeing all eight of them rushing towards him, Jonathan teleported back down to the auction hall floor. He appeared alongside the decapitated man and used his threads to absorb the elements of his remains before his attackers caught up to him. He did it with just enough speed; by the time the attackers arrived, they were too late.
“That’s four of you dead.” Jonathan chortled. “It’s been almost four minutes. At this rate, I’ll be home in time for dinner.”
Gritting his teeth, the leader shouted once more.
“Attack from all sides!”
Five of their team members flew towards him and surrounded him on all sides, one of them even used his sword to fly to position himself above Jonathan and thrust his spear down. The other three people stood at the ready, just waiting for an opening or the chance to back up their teammates.
It seemed like Jonathan’s luck had run out. He tried protecting his vitals, but he couldn’t block all five attacks at the same time. Some got through, and while they couldn’t slice him due to his immunity to metal, nano armour and atom defence skill, the weapons still knocked him about.
His nano swords were destroying two of the five weapons from each attack, but the fighters kept dropping their broken weapons in exchange for new ones. After a whole minute of this, there was a pile of destroyed weapons all around the arena.
On one of Jonathan’s swings to destroy another weapon, the leader dropped his blade and used both palms to catch the nano sword. His palms were positioned above and below the weapon, avoiding the sharp edges altogether. It was the last thing Jonathan expected an opponent to do, and he felt the knot in his stomach tighten.
With nothing but instinct, Jonathan tried to overpower the man. But no matter how many tricks he had up his sleeve, he was still only a Rank 5. The leader pulled the sword over his head, causing Jonathan who was still holding the weapon to follow suit and be
launched in the air.
Another man saw Jonathan flying defencelessly through the air, sword in hand but unprepared to use it. The fighter took caution and performed a sidekick, landed his Life Power infused blow directly on Jonathan’s stomach. Jonathan was pushed in the opposite direction of his sword, and the weapon was knocked loose from his grasping fingers.
Jonathan crashed on his back, landing deep inside a wall within the auction hall building itself. His head hung limp as the fingers of his empty hand twitched, sensing that the nano longsword was no longer in his possession. Try as he might, he couldn’t muster the strength to raise his head. Was it fear? No, he’d felt fear before, and it was nothing compared to the feeling burgeoning from deep inside. What was this—desperation? What was this numbing sensation crawling up and down his skin? What was this invisible claw holding him down, draining his strength?
His fingers twitched again, and his body began to reanimate. He felt weird. His body felt foreign. He felt disconnected as he watched his arms, then his legs each pull his body up and out of the rubble. Finally, with an unsettling and jerky motion, he swung his head upright and staggered toward the gaping hole he’d flown in through.
Disorientation transformed into murderous focus as Jonathan watched the leader bend over to lift the fallen nano sword from the ground.
With primal instinct, Jonathan instantly teleported back, further away from the fight. He had to get away. His mind was a mess. His shaky eyes darted to the ceiling. It wasn’t high enough. He wasn’t far enough to avoid the explosion.
Explosion?
BOOM!
Only moments before, the remaining fighters thought they’d gotten ahead in the battle, They thought they could use Jonathan’s weapon against him.
They didn’t know about the security system on the hilt of the blade.
As soon as the leader’s fingerprint graced the cool metal of the handle, the explosion was triggered.