Only those who’d grasped the mysteries of the Weapon’s Heart could hold out for about twenty seconds. And yet, this simple Heaven Soldier had held out for half a minute. However, even with his weak ‘Spring Wind’ Technique, he was just postponing his trip to the afterlife. He surely wouldn’t dodge the attack aimed at his stomach. He was too tired. That’s what Gurth had thought, at least.
During his time as an assassin, he’d sent 349 souls to their forefathers. But this one... This was the first time Gurth felt… uncertain. For some reason, he felt like he might not get to see tomorrow’s dawn.
Hadjar hit the ground with his left toe, held his sword against his body, and spun on his heel. The obsidian blade deflected an emerald one. Shocked by this strange move, Gurth’s fighter lost his balance. Hadjar’s cloak came to life and, stretching out, swept the legs of the confused assassin. The man lost his footing and began to fall on his back.
Still spinning, Hadjar struck out with his left foot again, knocking one of the daggers out of the falling assassin’s hands. The blade, losing its glow, flew through the air and sank into another assassin’s shoulder.
Gurth was absolutely certain that their Dance was still active. Even peak-stage Lords were unable to see or sense a member of the Dead Moon clan when they were using the Second Dance. Only a real genius could’ve predicted their attacks. And yet… Hadjar had not only managed to kick the dagger back with frightening accuracy, but he’d also hit an invisible target. Gurth would’ve thought it was merely a stroke of luck, but everything he’d seen Hadjar do so far suggested otherwise.
The obsidian blade moved in a wide arc over Hadjar’s head. Bending his back and knee, almost hitting the ground in the process, he made a very strange maneuver with his wrist. The blade, like a whip, moved along the arc, drawing a crescent in the air that couldn’t be avoided by jumping or dodging. The fourth assassin had to stop using the Second Dance to block. For a fraction of a second, three of the four assassins were visible and completely immobilized. This was enough for Hadjar to gain the upper hand.
The assassin who was still falling was completely defenseless. Unable to regain his balance, summon his Spirit, or rely on his companions for help, he hovered in the air.
Hadjar pointed the tip of his blade at the ground. Once he had a strong foothold, he spun in an oddly controlled fashion before placing his foot on the sand and abruptly straightening up. He pulled his blade out of the ground and sent a crescent of energy toward Gurth even as he kicked the falling assassin’s forearm. When the man, pierced by his own dagger clenched in his already lifeless hand, landed on the sand, he went from a young man to a mummified corpse in an instant. A gust of wind scattered the dust, leaving behind only a red mask, gray robes, and a pair of shimmering blades.
Gurth, too busy dodging the attack aimed at him to help, couldn’t believe his eyes. Hadjar had pressed all of them hard in less than a second and had even managed to eliminate one of them. His movements were so simple that they could’ve easily been used in street fights by weak practitioners. At the same time, they were executed so perfectly that not a single grain of energy was wasted. Hadjar used only as much power as he had to, no more, no less.
The only other person Gurth knew with such frightening skill was one of their clan’s Masters, a Nameless level assassin. Only he could combine aristocratic styles with the ability to control his body and energy perfectly. But Hadjar was just a Heaven Soldier! How the hell was he able to move and fight like a Nameless who’d dedicated fifty centuries of his life to turning himself into a living weapon?
“Defend!” Gurth ordered.
The other two assassins instantly returned to his side.
The only thing that gave him hope was the assumption that Hadjar had used some sort of artifact. That was the only explanation for such a sudden increase in his skill level. He was fighting in a way that only a few people in Darnassus could hope to imitate. His guess was proven correct by the injuries Hadjar had sustained, as his body couldn’t support the use of such maneuvers and speed for long. Blood trickled down his arms and legs and several of his bones were clearly broken. The capillaries in his eyes had burst, indicating that he wouldn’t last long at this rate. But… He wouldn’t need to, either. Five seconds would be enough for him to send them all to their forefathers if he kept fighting like this.
“Use the Third Dance,” Gurth ordered.
Despite the fact that only the most talented of Lords were afforded the honor of seeing the Third Dance, none of the assassins argued. All of them understood what would happen if they didn’t use the Technique.
A Spirit formed behind them — a red moon with a green dagger shining in front of it.
***
From the moment Hadjar had given the mental order, it had felt as if he’d been thrown out of his own body, like he was in the backseat of a car or in the front row of a movie theater. He saw everything and was aware of what was happening, but he couldn’t actually feel or influence anything. His body moved on its own. His energy, circulating in a manner that he’d never practiced before, wasn’t obeying him either. Even his Call and the Black Blade refused to respond to his mental commands. He suddenly felt like he was imprisoned in his own consciousness, like his very body no longer belonged to him.
In a matter of moments, the neural network, using him like a puppet, had been able to eliminate one assassin.
[Damage level: 36.4%
Correction of projected outcome according to new data initiated.
Analyzing the remaining targets...
Quantity: 3 targets
Projected level of damage host will sustain in the end: 69.7%]
The wounds he’d received were only a ‘Damage level’ to the neural network and his opponents nothing but targets.
“Stop! Give control back to the host!” Hadjar shouted in his mind.
[Please confirm latest command.
Probability of host’s death in case of manual override: 96%]
“Confirmed, you stupid hunk of junk!” He shouted.
For the first time in decades, he truly feared becoming a slave again. But when the Spirit formed behind the three assassins, he was clenching his fists on his own once more.
“Never,” he whispered to himself. “I’ll never be anyone’s slave ever again! Not even my own!”
The Quetzal bird’s wings spread out behind him and his eyes flashed with a bright blue light. Gripping the hilt of his blade with both hands, he plunged his mind into his spatial ring. Once he was there, he unfolded the Black General’s scroll. The results of his actions shook the Wastelands to their core.
Chapter 696
“W hat is going on here?”
Having dispelled the ‘Moon Bird’s Feather’ Technique, Gurth and the other two assassins channeled all of their energy into the Third Dance. Gurth didn’t understand how it worked, but this Dance, created by their clan’s Founder, allowed one to use the ‘Dead Moon’ Spirit like a shield. Three red ribbons merged together and created a barrier in front of the trio. Gurth, as befitting a leader, was in the front.
What’s more, even Einen’s opponents had been forced to use this Technique. The islander, who had almost no energy left to maintain his impenetrable defensive Techniques with, retreated behind his friend. Gurth watched helplessly as the young man swallowed some energy restoration pills.
Unlike Hadjar, Einen hadn’t attacked his opponents, only defended himself, but he’d done so masterfully. For assassins, cultivators with good defensive Techniques were always an issue.
The Quetzal bird’s appearance conjured such an incredible wave of power that boulders crumbled around them, and small trees were reduced to splinters.
Hiding behind the Third Dance, the assassins were content to just wait out the attack as their Technique had almost no equal in its ability to absorb damage.
“Impossible…”
Gurth had seen a lot in his three centuries of life. He could even accept that a Heaven Soldier someh
ow had a Spirit. But how the Spirit Bird had managed to meld with the obsidian blade was beyond his understanding. As soon as it touched the sword, it was instantly drawn inside of it. A blue symbol depicting a bird taking flight emerged along the black steel.
The pressure didn’t disappear after that. On the contrary, it increased so much that Gurth suddenly realized it was difficult for him to breathe. It was difficult for him, a peak-stage Spirit Knight, to breathe due to the pressure of a Heaven Soldier’s energy!
Hadjar raised his sword above his head. A tornado of black energy streaked with thin, blue threads swirled all around him.
“By the demons and gods!” Gurth gasped.
What he saw standing in the eye of the storm wasn’t a human, but a wild beast; a predator ready to tear him apart just because he’d trespassed on its territory. A moment later, all that primal rage and power charged him.
“Black Wind!”
The tornado, after shrinking to the size of a tiny dot for a moment, flared up again and opened a hole in the sky. A dragon’s maw emerged from the streams of turbulent energy. 18 feet tall and 6 feet wide, it had been created from Sword mysteries so dense and potent that it looked like a real dragon had descended from the sky. The fanged chasm opened with a roar, revealing its sword-tongue — a perfect replica of the obsidian blade held firmly in Hadjar’s hands. The dragon flew three feet above the ground, plowing through its surface with its mere presence, leaving behind a wide, deep furrow in its wake.
With a mighty roar, it slammed into the Third Dance. The assassins tensed up and poured almost all their energy into the barrier, hoping that the other group would help them. But their friends couldn’t move. After the collision of Techniques, the echo of the released energy had spread out all over the area, sending hundreds of lethal energy crescents flying in all directions.
They destroyed everything they touched: the ancient ruins were reduced to rubble, trees to sawdust, and the ground split apart in dozens of places.
“Amplify!” Gurth shouted.
The assassins all simultaneously reached into their robes and retrieved some pills. An explosion of energy followed as they consumed them. With their Cores refueled, they poured all of their energy into the shield.
The ground around them was shaking violently and threatening to burst apart. Huge chunks of dried earth, unable to withstand the pressure, erupted into the air and instantly turned to dust.
Gurth and his men stood on the edge of a deep chasm.
“Holy shit!”
Gurth managed to react at the last second and jumped back. Unfortunately, the two assassins behind him weren’t so lucky. When the shield formed by the combined power of the three Spirit Knights had cracked, Hadjar’s weakened attack had destroyed them. Not just killed them, but annihilated them completely. Everything had disappeared — their bodies, armor, weapons, and all the items they might’ve had with them at the moment of their deaths.
But the attack didn’t stop there. It flew a few more feet forward, where it then exploded in a flash of black and blue energy.
When the dust settled, Gurth cursed and stared at the crater left behind by the explosion. Of his six subordinates, three had already gone to their forefathers. He still couldn’t believe that a simple Heaven Soldier had managed to survive fighting them for so long. Of all the people he’d ever fought, only Lords had been able to keep up with them. Lords! Not fucking Heaven Soldiers!
What kind of an unholy monster was this Hadjar!
If he didn’t destroy this beast right here and now, the Dead Moon clan would be in great danger when Hadjar reached the true peak of his power. He couldn’t allow that to happen, he simply couldn’t.
He turned to Hadjar, who was lying unconscious on the hot sand. He was so still that it was almost impossible to see his chest moving as he breathed. Gurth’s blades flashed green again. The assassins from the second group wordlessly came over to stand next to their leader, facing the other foe and his iridescent ape.
The bald warrior had also surprised Gurth. Somehow, his shadow ape Technique was able to merge with his Call. The assassin had already seen such Techniques before, but, when using his Call, which assumed the form of an iridescent armor made from many scales, the man’s ape increased its defenses fivefold and even acquired the ability to attack. After witnessing such odd Techniques and his strange weapon, one could definitely count on the islander having a couple of surprises up his sleeve.
“What the fuck is going on here? Who are these two?” Gurth whispered to himself.
He’d only taken a single step forward when one of the other assassins called out to him.
“Sir.”
Gurth turned and saw a horde of cultivators of various levels stampeding toward them, kicking up dust in their wake.
“What fresh hell is this?” He yelled in annoyance.
By the looks of it, they weren’t running over to help these two, but to investigate the area where the ray of energy had shot out from. As luck would have it, their route would take them right past the assassins and their prey.
“Retreat.”
“Yes, sir!” The assassins instantly disappeared.
Gurth wasn’t surprised to realize that he’d stopped feeling the auras of their cats just a few seconds ago. That damned tigress had turned them into a pile of meat and bones.
“Tell your friend,” Gurth said to the islander, “that we’ll be seeing each other again soon...”
His threat delivered, he disappeared. He urgently needed to consult the Master about what had just happened. A monster wielding such immense power deserved to face someone who was able to perform the Fourth Dance…
Chapter 697
H adjar was in a strange state, trapped somewhere between a dream and reality. It was like that moment when a person lay awake in bed, but desperately refused to open their eyes, trying to prolong the feeling of lethargy in which the darkness felt like something warm and pleasant.
[Host’s state: stable
Time elapsed since the crisis: 4 hours, 16 minutes, and 25... 26... 27... seconds]
The flash of the neural network’s information window almost made Hadjar open his eyes. Holding himself at the edge between oblivion and awakening, he smiled broadly.
This feeling was familiar to him. He’d felt it many, many years ago, back when he’d still lived on Earth. Bedridden and unable to move anything but his left arm, he’d felt trapped inside his own body.
He’d felt it once again in the Black Mountains of Balium, during his battle with the Patriarch of ‘The Black Gates’ sect. No matter how hard he tried to forget that memory, it still visited him in his nightmares. The feeling had been so vivid that, in the year after, Hadjar had been glad that his neural network had been disabled. He’d even hoped that it would disappear altogether and take the memory of the twenty years he’d spent in a prison of his own flesh and mind with it. The memory of him lying in a hospital bed, watching as life passed him by as he clung to the illusion of being needed in this world. Little did he know that the world didn’t really care about him. Even his music had been nothing more than a desperate attempt to make the world acknowledge that he was still alive and kicking. He’d waited for years for something to come along and fill the gaping void in his chest. But nothing ever had…
He was once again trapped inside his own body, and all these feelings, all the memories, returned to him with renewed vigor.
“Network, prepare for a priority command.”
[Ready to obey command.]
“I hereby forbid the use of the autopilot mode, regardless of the situation.”
[Processing command… Error! This command cannot be obeyed.]
A chill ran down his spine. His suspicions had just been confirmed. He felt like he was lying in that hospital bed again. It was as if he’d never lived thirty years in this new world, as if he hadn’t been the Mad General who’d fought and won even the most difficult of battles, relying only on his own strength and sword.
“Elaborate.”
[Switching to autopilot in situations where the host’s chances of death exceed 99.9% is a preset.]
“Damn it! Who programmed that?”
[Processing request… Error! No information available.]
Hadjar cursed again. Why wasn’t there any information about something so important? Who had done this to him?
“Is it possible to change this preset?”
[Processing request… It is possible to change the preset.]
“Then remove the preset. Cancel switching to autopilot in all situations.”
[Please confirm the command.]
“Confirmed.”
[Processing request...
Please, confirm a second time.
Warning: If you cancel the automatic switch to autopilot mode, the probability of host’s death increases by 37.98%.]
“Confirmed!” Hadjar shouted.
The darkness was silent at first, but then another information window popped up.
[Command completed. Autopilot will now require a request to activate.]
“Fucking piece of shit!” Hadjar ranted. “What’s the point of turning on autopilot if it makes me weaker over time?”
A cultivator could only become stronger if they experienced all the difficulties and hardships of life in the world of martial arts on their own. If it were possible to become stronger by simply being an observer (which Hadjar became when using the autopilot), the heirs of the great clans would always be followed around by a crowd of Lords who would fight on their behalf. And the heir would just watch them do it and become stronger in the process.
Dragon Heart: Land of The Enemy. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 8 Page 25