'I can't channel my Qi!' Toby realized a moment before his strike connected. The dagger hit something solid instead of soft skin and failed to pierce through it, not leaving even a single graze on Ken's skin.
"ASSASSIN!" Ken yelled loudly at the same time, and Max and Jake acted immediately. They struck the laying man with their swords without holding back, aware of his greater strength as a sixth-stage cultivator. Their goal was not to win, but to buy time for Ken to retreat and for others to help them.
'How can that be?!" The assassin's shock was easy to understand, as not many things could stop a full-force swing from someone at his stage. But that only applied to those who could control their powers.
He noticed something peculiar just then. Ken's positioning made his robes block the view from those around them, and one could only see that Toby's hand was stretched in the direction of Ken's chest, but not see the place where the chest and the dagger met.
Ken's hands moved nimbly and snatched the dagger from Toby's hand and placed it quickly in his sleeve. Instead, another dagger replaced it and appeared in his hand as his other hand grabbed Toby's without letting go. The new dagger was plunged into Ken's chest just beside the heart, avoiding any fatal spot. It all took less than a second.
A fracture second after Ken was done with his little play, Jake's and Max's attacks reached Toby's torso. He instinctively tried to protect himself but without the ability to channel Qi, he stood no chance. The attacks cleaved him in half, and he died instantly.
"Young Master, are you ok?"
Jake shouted and crouched down to see Ken's condition after the latter stumbled back and fell to his knees.
"Young Master was injured. Quickly! Someone, come and treat him!" Max shouted when he saw the knife plunged into Ken's chest. The havoc from their attacks already pulled everyone's attention to them, and healers rushed in their direction to provide treatment.
"I'm a Senior Elder from the Alchemy division, let me take care of it!" One middle-aged lady appeared and took control of the scene. She fed Ken with a healing pill and pulled the knife out. Using her mind powers and Qi, she prevented the blood from spilling out.
She multitasked in order to save Ken; with one hand she guided the Qi inside Ken's body to facilitate healing, while the other hand touched and scanned the dagger that almost put an end to his life.
"It was poisoned, but luckily, I know this poison," she told Ken while taking care of him. She produced another pill from her storage ring and made him swallow it, letting it purify the poison from his bloodstream.
'That's not luck, I chose this poison because I knew most Senior Elders would recognize it…' Ken complained in his heart when the credit for the beautiful circumstances was given to luck instead of the real mastermind.
"Mhm, thanks, Elder Savannah."
"It's good that you remember my name," she flashed him a friendly smile and continued to treat his injury. As an elder who learned his theories, she wholeheartedly believed that Ken's worth to her division and the whole sect was higher than any number of disciples that got killed in that war, at least in the long run.
"You, why did you kill him instead of restraining him for information?" Savannah scolded the two bodyguards that stood from Ken's two sides to make sure nobody tried to take advantage of the perilous situation.
"We are sorry, Senior Elder. We knew the assassin was a sixth-stage cultivator, and we did not think he would get killed by our attacks. Perhaps we underestimated his injuries."
"Argh, whatever. Collect the storage ring from his finger and give it to the Sue clan for inspection. They will probably be interested to see if they can find any clues to his motive and identity."
"Yes, Senior Elder."
After 30 minutes of careful treatment, she was sure that Ken was almost at peak condition again and could heal within days.
"Young Master Ken, you should be good now. Would you like me to send someone to escort you to your clan's territory?" She spoke politely and even referred to him as 'Young Master' to show her respect.
She believed he'd be a huge asset to the sect one day, and enforcing her temporary higher status over him would be an idiotic choice compared to building a good relationship with him. For her, healing him was a godsent opportunity to make him see her in a favorable light.
"I'm good, Jake and Max will be enough. He only caught me off-guard because I concentrated on healing him."
"All right. You were lucky that he missed the heart somehow," She nodded and Ken left the clinic to rest at home, shaking his head.
'The only problem about scheming while hiding your strength is that people don't give you the credit you deserve,' he mused on his trip back home. Thanks to the intel from the Serene Lotus Sect, he knew it was only the first phase of the rollercoaster that the Four Seasons Sect had prepared for him.
'It'd be embarrassing if I gave him poison instead of a healing pill and he'd turn out to be a normal disciple and not an assassin,' Ken chuckled to himself when he recalled how he dealt with the threat.
When the man had let Ken feed him with a healing pill, Ken used a variation of the poison he used on the group of five that protected Maria back then. It numbed his pain, making him think that Ken was truly treating him, but most importantly, it also blocked his Qi control which ultimately led to the failure of that assassination attempt.
"Young Master, why are you wearing your belt so high lately?" Jake asked Ken curiously. He noticed the change a few days ago but did not know how to bring it up. He tried it now to lighten the mood and help the trio, himself included, relax.
"I think it's more fashionable," Ken replied and sunk back into his thoughts on the previous incident, ignoring the bodyguards' light smiles.
'This chest armor is also not bad,' Ken brushed the cold, thin plate under his shirt. It was a piece created from the scales of a fifth-grade beast, and Ken inscribed it with runes of the fourth rank. It'd normally be as useful as a piece of paper against a direct hit of a sixth-stage cultivator, but it was enough against a poisoned and injured one.
Ken was still busy with his thoughts as he went past a restaurant and a woman was sent flying out of it, landing right in Ken's path. The door broke from the impact, and when the dust sunk in, Ken saw a man coming out.
"You shitty sister, I can't believe you had slept with my fiancée, with your sister-in-law!"
Ken, Jake, and Max raised an eyebrow at the scene.
"Move, the young master of the Sue clan is passing through, do you dare block the road?!" Jake commanded in a threatening tone.
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Noah and Emma were a pair of twins. Their parents got killed by a passing evil cultivator when they were still young, but that woman did not like killing children or she didn't benefit from killing them; either way, she spared their lives and left.
They weren't the only ones there – they had a little sister they raised together ever since. They were only 13 years old at the time of the incident while their younger sister was only 5.
Thanks to the hardships they went through to provide her with food and a safe environment, their wills strengthened beyond the realm of normal humans, and they managed to impress the examiner of the Phoenix Feather Sect when they were fifteen, and thus were accepted into the sect.
They did not agree to leave their sister, and the agreement was that the sect would hire a bodyguard and a maid for the young girl until she got married or joined the sect.
Unfortunately, she wasn't subjected to the same hardships as her siblings due to their spoiling and was never admitted to the sect. She herself did not want to cultivate and endure the pain involved.
Now, she was married to a loving husband and had 2 sweet children that the siblings loved as if they were their own offspring, and often came to play with the two, bringing endless gifts and supplies.
However, a week ago, while the two went on a mission to kill some enemies, they had the misfortune of meeting a trio of inner disciples that Toby would recognize for sure as the ones who had destroyed his life and annihilated his group.
ραΠdαsΝοvel.cοm "Oh, here are Emma and Noah," one of them said when he saw them. The fight soon began and ended tragically fast.
"Here, I have a gift for you."
Their leader smiled at the two amiably after killing their three comrades. The man took out a head from his storage ring and threw it at the ground, letting it roll until it stopped in front of them.
"It's Dan!" Emma said in fear. Dan, the husband of their sweet sister and the father of their beloved nephew.
"What happened to the others?" Noah asked with gritted teeth, shaking uncontrollably.
"Nothing, so far. They were escorted safely to the territory of the Four Seasons Sect. I hope you weren't attached to the father, he seemed unimportant so we thought his head would serve as a fair warning."
"What warning? You cowards, since when do righteous cultivators target mortals?! You lot are nothing but an evil mob!" Emma screamed in anger.
"Since some penny cultivators think too highly of themselves and challenge a top five sect. Now, don't be angry, their fate is in your hands," the leader said in disdain, enjoying the various expressions the siblings in front of him showed. His ruthless and sadistic nature was partially the reason he was chosen for this quest.
"What do you want from us?"
"It's simple. Here's a dagger with seventh-grade poison. Stab Ken Sue with its blade, and I swear to the heavens that I will take care of your sister and nephews, supply them with money, and make sure no harm befalls them."
The two exchanged a long look that spoke plenty. After depending on each other for dozens of years, they could communicate in silence. After a short minute, the two nodded and turned back to the waiting man.
"We will do it."
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