“Damn it... Damn it!”
The dust curtain gradually fell away. A silhouette took shape within the gloom and shadows. Holding her sword, the assassin stood in the center of a fifteen-foot-long furrow. She spat out blood and pulled pieces of her broken armor out of her shoulders and back. Part of her broken helmet had dug so deep into her cheek that it had exposed a row of broken teeth. Thick, white goo dripped down from her left eye socket. Even so, she was still alive. Despite enduring a series of unexpected, devastating attacks, a real Spirit Knight, unlike Ragar and Sankesh, wasn’t so easy to kill. Aided by her Imperial armor, combat experience, and strong Technique for Strengthening the Body, this Spirit Knight was almost invincible.
“Even a flea can still bite you.” She quoted from an old tale about the Black General. “When I kill you, little boy, I’ll tear out your heart and drink your blood.”
She stopped trying to dig the pieces of metal out of her skin and raised her blade above her head.
“Bloody Feast!”
A small, red dot flashed at the very tip of her heavy sword. A ball of pulsing light gradually sucked in all the blood in the vicinity. Ribbons of blood flowed out of the water, flew off the ground, and slithered out of the mutilated bodies. The huge sphere of scarlet energy they coalesced into shone so brightly that there wasn’t a single shadow left in the garden. The assassin pointed her blade at Hadjar and released the Technique with a grin.
The sphere, still drawing in blood as it went, spun and flew toward Hadjar, evaporating the ground beneath it. The air around it glittered with a scarlet hue. Trees, buildings, and bodies disappeared into it without a trace. It didn’t even leave any dust behind. It was a monstrous, lethal Technique.
The assassin, who was once again plucking pieces of armor out of her body and letting her Technique for Strengthening the Body gradually restore her injured flesh, stared ahead with an ecstatic grin. As soon as she killed the boy, all of the Enemy’s energy in his blood would be hers. She wondered how one of the Black General’s heirs could possibly not know about the constant war going on between them? After all, the one who killed all the other heirs would become the master of a power comparable to the Enemy’s own! After the boy’s demise, she would absorb more energy from him than from the other 76 heirs she’d killed before combined...
“Azure Cloud!”
Chapter 499
As soon as the sphere hid him from the assassin, Hadjar took a handful of alchemical pills out of his spatial ring. After he swallowed them, he almost roared. It felt as if molten metal was being poured directly into his body. It flowed down his throat, scorched his trachea, lungs, and stomach, and then finally reached his core, which shone like a bright star. The little dragon within Hadjar’s soul leapt up and flew into his chest.
In the physical world, the cloak of black fog draped itself over his shoulders once more. The Black Blade flashed in his hands. Using the sixth stance of the ‘Light Breeze’ Sword Technique and filling his body with the mysteries of the Sword Spirit, Hadjar turned into a plume of black fog. He circled the sphere, but didn’t rush forward just yet.
The assassin was standing only twenty feet away, but even with the ‘Wind’ stance and his mastery over the Sword’s Heart aiding him, Hadjar wasn’t fast enough. After a moment, another crazy plan came to him.
The blood sphere struck the ground. It instantly scattered several tons of earth, creating a crater 20 feet deep and nearly 65 feet wide. Even a Lord at the initial stage could’ve been injured by such an attack.
Then came the shockwave. It lifted boulders into the air, spun the water that had been purified from blood into raging maelstroms, and uprooted trees. Hadjar had been waiting for this very moment. His cloak, now brimming with extra energy, turned into a pair of huge wings. They allowed him to glide forward with deceptive speed. In an instant, he was behind the assassin. The Black Blade slashed out, and a wave of energy surged through Hadjar’s body. After it merged with the mysteries of the Sword Spirit he’d mastered and enveloped his blade, Hadjar’s used his most lethal Technique.
Not wishing to get too close to the assassin, he stayed a few feet away. There was nothing he could counter her attacks with apart from the ‘Azure Cloud’.
“Azure Cloud!”
For the third time that day, a black cloud appeared above the restaurant. A black dragon with a sword for a body surged out of it, filling the air with its fierce roar. Slamming into the assassin, it destroyed the ground beneath her in a wide radius. However, the powerful Earth level Technique was no match for the might of the experienced Spirit Knight.
The dragon, unlike the amulets, couldn’t even wound her. It crashed into the sphere of blood she’d conjured and shattered, turning into black and blue flakes. In just a fraction of a second, the assassin had managed to use a Defensive Technique and almost completely absorb Hadjar’s attack.
“Now it’s my turn!” She roared out.
The blood sphere cracked and the assassin leapt toward him. Her titanic sword fell on Hadjar. A scarlet cloud of blood and power trailed behind it, imbued with the mysteries of the Heavy Sword Spirit at the level of a Wielder. If the assassin had been at the Weapon’s Heart level, she would’ve swept away not just Hadjar, but the entire courtyard and restaurant as well.
Hadjar, knowing that even the mere echo of this attack could end his life, didn’t try to block or deflect it. Dredging up every shred of speed he could muster, he dodged aside. The sword struck, splitting the ground in half. Stones shot up and pummeled the remains of the once beautiful building. A wild whirlwind of darkness and blood raged around the assassin.
Hadjar hovered around the wounded Spirit Knight. He was floating above the ground using his new wings. A plume of black fog that had a dragon within it trailed after the attacks of the powerful but slow weapon.
Until recently, the assassin had been moving at an astonishing speed, but now, wounded and exhausted, she could no longer catch up to Hadjar. She hoped that her Technique for Strengthening the Body would finish healing her wounds soon so that she could squash this little bug with all her might.
Hadjar was well aware of the fact that if the assassin hadn’t spent all her artifacts and pills on the people she’d killed before their battle, he would’ve died before it had even truly begun.
Pushing off from the ground, Hadjar soared into the sky. He was like a streak of darkness. Breaking the laws of physics, he landed on one of the rocks that had been sent flying. From Hadjar’s perspective, they were crawling across the sky like snails.
The spot where Hadjar had just stood was struck by the assassin’s sword. She couldn’t catch the annoying insect. Her attacks were so strong that their echoes, which looked like bloody flashes, could’ve easily taken the life of even a Heaven Soldier, let alone a mere practitioner or mortal.
However, that wasn’t enough to deal with Hadjar. He’d long ago been compared to a Heaven Soldier at the peak stage. He was far stronger than his actual level of cultivation thanks to his Call, the Enemy’s own legacy flowing through his veins, and, most importantly, his mastery over the Sword’s Heart. Nevertheless, Hadjar was still only at the initial stage of his level, so he didn’t dare face her attacks head on.
“Fight me like an actual warrior, you cowardly worm!” He heard the assassin scream.
The boulder on which he’d been standing shattered, broken by a scarlet crescent as thick as his arm and twelve feet long. It continued flying upward until it splashed against the translucent veil in a flash of crimson. In its light, Hadjar caught a glimpse of huge wings and light pouring from a spear. Somewhere out there, the warriors of the Marnil clan, including Enora, were trying to break through the veil, which meant that all Hadjar had to do was hold on for just a bit longer. He decided to experiment a little.
Imagining an autumn leaf landing on his blade, Hadjar shouted:
“Falling Leaf!”
He swung his blade in a wide arc, sending forth a blue-black wave of energy. It fle
w through the air and collided with the Spirit Knight’s weapon. She only took a few steps back. The attack didn’t leave so much as a scratch on her. She didn’t even grunt in effort as she blocked his improvised energy attack.
She’d already blocked one of Hadjar’s strongest attacks, so this was no surprise. However, fighting at long range had never been his strong suit. Turning into fog, Hadjar came close to the assassin for the first time since their battle had started. As a storm of blue-black energy raged around him, he put all his power into a swift slash.
“Fool!” The assassin shouted happily.
She was faster than him in melee range. Before he could launch his attack, she managed to turn the blade in her hands and counterattack. Another wave of blood fell on Hadjar.
The assassin’s victorious smile turned into a surprised one. The boy might’ve expected such a maneuver from her and should’ve tried to protect himself. However, ignoring the wave, he’d continued attacking. At the last second, right before her sword could take his life, a blue-and-black dragon appeared. It couldn’t block or delay her attack, but it didn’t need to. Hadjar was going to leverage his superior mastery of the Sword to hopefully use it for something else entirely. Would it work? Only one way to find out.
“Fifth stance: Rustle in the Treetops,” Hadjar whispered.
The Black Blade struck the Spirit Knight, reinforced by the energy of her own avalanche of blood.
Chapter 500
Hadjar felt the Black Blade pierce the assassin’s flesh. Only after touching her blood and energy channels did the sword begin to greedily absorb her Spirit particles. Horror threatened to overwhelm her as she felt the Enemy’s Inheritance drain her power. Bit by her, her Spirit, something she’d fought for years to acquire and grow, shedding sweat, blood, and tears, disappeared. Roaring in outrage, she slammed her fist into her foe.
The cloak of black fog wrapped around Hadjar like a tight cocoon, but even that couldn’t completely absorb the blow. He flew about fifteen feet through the air and rolled across the ground before finally managing to drive his sword into the ground and come to a halt. Spitting out blood, he rose to his feet. He could feel the Black Blade’s hunger. The assassin was tastier than the Energy Stones it had eaten. After all, they were merely the essence of Spirit.
After just a few seconds of devouring the assassin’s Spirit, the Black Blade had absorbed more power than it had from all its previous ‘meals’ combined. There was something inside this young woman that appealed to the Black Blade. It made the weapon yearn for his enemy’s energy with disturbing intensity. Hadjar was disgusted by the feeling. It was as if someone had dipped him into a tank full of death. It was an eerie sensation of dread that came from half-forgotten ancient instincts and nightmares.
However, when he noticed that the Spirit Knight had grown significantly weaker after just one injury, Hadjar realized that fighting her in melee was his only chance of winning.
“Centuries,” the assassin wailed in a half-mad voice, “all these centuries I’ve spent running around the world, looking for other Inheritors... All these centuries I’ve spent serving the Apocalypse Sect... And you’ve taken half of them!” She shouted, eyes flashing with the fire of all-consuming hatred.
“I won’t kill you, boy. No. That would be too kind! I’ll bring you to my Master, Raven Wing, instead!”
Hadjar looked behind the young woman again. There, on the branch of a miraculously preserved tree, the raven still sat. A few minutes ago, it had just seemed vaguely familiar, but now it was a reminder of his distant past. Hadjar was once again standing on the broad platform of the holy grounds of ‘The Black Gates’ sect. He had come to fight its Patriarch, but had been immobilized and almost destroyed by the aura of a Spirit Knight. Hadjar could now see the resemblance between the assassin and that man from long ago. Her helmet, her sword, and even the way she moved was so similar.
“I see you know him.” A crazy smile twisted the assassin’s face into a mask of madness. “Oh, the torments that my Lord will inflict upon you will make my suffering look like a gentle hug by comparison. Prepare for an eternity of pain, you miserable worm!”
The young woman suddenly held out her left hand. She squeezed like she was grabbing the hilt of a sword, then drove it hard into her own chest. Blood ran down her armor, filling the patterns etched in it. Behind her, the raven left the branch it had perched on with a croak and disappeared as it flew out of the dark dome all around them. The blood on the assassin’s armor flashed. It glowed a bright red and Hadjar was struck by a pressure comparable to what he had felt Lords exude. It weakened as the assassin’s own vitality drained away.
“Damn it.” Hadjar swore, and gripped his sword tighter.
It was one of those Techniques that used a cultivator’s own life to fuel it. Not everyone was brave enough to do something so risky — to trade years and even centuries of their life for seconds of incredible power.
“Pray to your forefathers, bastard!” The Spirit Knight shouted.
A flower bloomed in the air behind her. It was the same flower that had bloomed beneath Hadjar’s feet back at the restaurant, with twelve blades instead of a bud, and eerily shaped helmets instead of leaves. He’d heard about Blood Spirit Techniques before. They demanded blood sacrifices and were therefore considered unsavory. One of the conditions for summoning a cultivator’s Spirit into the physical world was a personal sacrifice. Had that not been the case, Hadjar was certain that she would’ve summoned her Spirit long ago.
The assassin’s eyes showed how agonizing this was for her. However, her hands were still gripping the hilt of her invisible blade. As if to confirm Hadjar’s presumptions, rivers of blood that had been flowing through the garden began to seep into her wound. Her Spirit shone brighter, and the pressure Hadjar felt bearing down on him grew stronger.
“I won’t kill you, boy.” Her voice sounded inhuman, like the growl of a ravenous beast. “But I’ll cripple you, leave you unable to even stand on your own!”
“Nothing new there,” Hadjar retorted.
The woman roared like a wounded tiger and charged. The sheer force of her reckless attack made the ground explode all around her, leaving behind craters that were three feet deep.
Time stopped for Hadjar. The assassin’s sword froze a few inches from his stomach. He started falling. He sank into darkness, lost in the ink of the scroll he’d found after defeating the Patriarch. He now had a vague understanding of how a piece of the Black General’s Inheritance had appeared in the Black Mountains...
***
“If she ends up with so much as a hair out of place, you’ll feel my wrath!” Enora shouted.
Once again, using all her strength, she rammed her spear into the dome that covered the yard of the ‘Heaven’s Pond’. A hundred more griffin riders attacked alongside her. Each of them was a Spirit Knight at the initial stage. All the guards of the Marnil clan were here. Only the military leaders and the Head were missing. Like the leaders and Heads of other clans, they were too busy helping in the city.
Enora swore once she saw how futile their attempts to break through were, then turned toward Dahanatan. Huge columns of smoke and fire rose above it. The air was filled with cries, both human and feral, gunshots, and the clanking of armor. Throughout the city, the eldest heirs of the seven great clans, as well as the other nobles, were being attacked. According to the latest news that Enora had received from a subordinate, about twelve thousand cultivators had already died. No one had bothered to count the mortal causalities.
They’d obviously planned this attack for decades at least. By the Great Forest, she thought, the scum who attacked us will suffer such a terrible fate that even the stone statue of the beautiful virgin that resides in the garden of the God of War will weep in sympathy!
But she had to forget vengeance for now. At the moment, it was more important to save her sister. If those bloody Lasсanians touch so much as a hair on her head... Suddenly, Enora felt a surge of panic. It had
been a long time since she’d felt anything like this, because only a few people, even among the Lords, were a match for her, the chief guard of the Marnil clan.
As a peak Spirit Knight who’d mastered the Spear’s Heart, she could even fight Lords on equal terms. She’d never feared them. At first, she thought that the wave of terrible power was emanating from the streets of the Central District. Then she realized that it was coming from beneath the dome. Her warriors looked at each other in bewilderment, feeling it as well. Suddenly, Enora’s eyes widened in a mixture of horror and surprise.
“Back!” She commanded.
They scattered just in time, a mere moment before a plume of black energy surged upward, breaking through the dome covered in hieroglyphs and destroying the inky veil. It cut through the dome with ease and disappeared into the sky.
***
Hadjar coughed and looked at his hands. They were stained with the golden hue of the elixir of the gods. After absorbing it, he had used the image of the Black General’s attack. He couldn’t remember what had happened after that. He’d only swung his sword once, and the world had plunged into darkness. When the darkness had receded, the dome had begun to crack. The Black Blade was now sticking out of the assassin’s chest, and a thirty-foot-wide crack had opened up in the ground behind her. It was deep enough for a small lake of water and blood to fill it.
“I refuse to die alone,” the Spirit Knight croaked.
She flicked her wrist. A steel blade suddenly swept past Hadjar. He kicked her corpse off his blade and ran after the dagger. But no matter how fast he was, he simply couldn’t keep up with it after such an exhausting battle. All he could do was grab it by the hilt as it sank a full two inches into Price’s chest. He began to wheeze, and his eyes opened wide. His veins darkened rapidly, and his life began to ebb out of him.
“Damn it all,” Hadjar whispered, tightening his grip on the swordsman’s shoulders.
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