Timeless AssassinC431: Trouble Brewing
Chapter 431: Trouble Brewing
(Leo's POV)
After spending some time quietly processing the Codex's latest revelations, Leo finally rose to his feet and met Charles's gaze.
His earlier anger dying down significantly once he understood the true intent behind the Monarch's earlier brutality.
"Well... I'm not about to thank you for beating me within an inch of my death," Leo muttered, his voice dry, "but I guess I don't hate you anymore."
Leo said, as Charles responded with the brightest smile a man like him could muster, a rare warmth stretching across his weathered face.
"I appreciate the pardon, boy. I've never liked being surrounded by people who hold grudges over small things."
He paused briefly, his tone turning just a shade more serious.
"A real warrior should save his hatred for causes that actually matter, not petty scraps like this."
Leo gave a quiet nod in agreement, then stepped forward and extended his hand.
*Clap*
Charles clasped it firmly, giving Leo a respectful nod before shifting gears.
"I'm guessing the Codex told you to begin your training in the realm of intent?" he asked, a knowing glint in his eye.
Leo blinked once, then nodded in affirmation.
"Good," Charles said, his smile returning.
"Our next goal is clear then. We need you to unlock the ability to observe killing intent in its thread form before your upcoming bout."
He let the words hang for a moment, before the corners of his lips curled into a broader grin, one that even he couldn't contain.
"Because if you manage that... you won't just be strong."
"You'll become a nightmare for that Veyr boy to face. A problem that pure talent or strength alone can't solve. A problem that can transcend tiers."
Leo couldn't help but grin back, a flicker of anticipation rising in his chest.
"Well, I don't know what you've planned for me, but I kind of have a hidden ace of my own.
Something that can help even the odds just slightly," Leo said, as he reached into his storage ring and brought out the rusted necklace he had retrieved from the Serpents vault.
"What is that piece of junk?" Charles asked, as Leo handed him the necklace, only for Charles's eyes to widen in surprise when he realized what this truly was.
"Hooo—-" the monarch spoke excitedly, his pitch inflecting as he snickered and giggled like a child.
"Not bad son, learn how to properly wield this and you'll probably give any Transcendent warrior a hard time at killing you," Charles said, handing the necklace back to Leo, as he mentally adjusted Leo's training regimen to include artifact training.
—------------
(Meanwhile, nearby on the Juxta Military Base)
While Charles and Leo were reconciling near the far corner of the Juxta Military Base, an operative from the Black Serpents managed to secretly infiltrate the facility, disguised as just another Cult Soldier.
After the Black Serpents Guild put out a massive bounty on Leo's head, there were thousands of assassins who were now actively chasing Leo, several of whom had managed to secretly infiltrate the Cult in their search to kill the boy.
At first, nobody was quite sure about his location and everyone remained scattered across several Cult controlled planets in their search for Leo, however, ever since the information about his bout against Aegon Veyr had been made public, news about him being secretly trained by Commander Charles on planet Juxta, slowly began to make rounds in the information market.
'Seems like the information I received was true.... Everywhere around me, all the soldiers here talk about is Commander Charles and the next Dragon Candidate 'Leo Skyshard'.' The Assassin thought, as he silently scoffed at the Cult and their misplaced faith in a child who was barely a Grandmaster yet.
"You guys don't get it! The Council Of Elders has probably booked this fight having knowledge that Leo will break through to the Transcendent realm in the next two months! There's no way they will make two warriors with unequal tiers fight against one another!"
"Yes! I can bet all my life savings that this is the case. I'm sure we will receive news of Skyshard breaking through in a week or two–"
"Mannn! I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it, these candidates are what? 23-24 years of age? They're too young to be Transcendent-tier warriors.
Both of them are special for sure!"
"No way! Aegon Veyr is so young? I had no idea—"
The Cult soldiers discussed while patrolling, as the assassin couldn't help but feel sick listening to their conversations.
He wasn't interested in their fandom or flattery. He wasn't interested in whether Leo was talented, transcendent, or a divine miracle born under the right stars.
He was only interested in one thing—
The price on Leo Skyshard's head.
And whether that head could be separated from its body before it rose beyond his reach.
*Step*
*Step*
Just then, a pair of Cult officers passed by, casually chatting between themselves without the faintest suspicion that a trained killer walked among them.
"I heard the Commander's taking Leo to the main training hall tomorrow morning."
"Seriously? That's perfect! I was hoping we'd get to watch some of his live sparring. I've heard he's insane in motion... nothing like the footage on the internal net."
"Heh, yeah. Apparently half the base is planning to show up. Rumor is, the commander is going to be sparring with the boy personally, shit's gonna be wild."
The assassin's ears perked up, and a small smirk tugged at his lips beneath the mask hidden inside his collar.
So, tomorrow morning then.
That's when the boy would be exposed. A perfect opportunity.
Not to strike, no. Not yet.
But to observe and to put a tracker spell on the boy that would make killing him down the line that much simpler.
'Once I put that tracker spell on you, it's only a matter of time before I manage to catch you in a vulnerable position alone and take you out—' The assassin thought, as he slit a finger across his throat, before disappearing into a dark alley nearby.
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC432: Slow Decay
Chapter 432: Slow Decay
(Twin Fang Planet, Black Serpents Headquarters, Antonio's POV)
The air inside Dupravel's office felt heavier than usual.
Antonio stood motionless beside Dupravel's seat, his fists clenched tightly behind his back, nails biting into the flesh of his palms as he kept his head bowed low, not in submission, but in restraint.
His eyes were fixed on the man sitting comfortably in the chair opposite them— Commander Entrail of the Universal Government, adorned in regal black and gold armor, his posture relaxed, his lips curled into a smirk that had barely wavered since his arrival.
"I must admit, I'm surprised," Entrail said, his tone calm and condescending, "I expected at least a trace of dignity from the once feared Dupravel Nuna. Instead, I find a man who can barely form a sentence without spitting on himself."
Dupravel let out a guttural laugh, tilting his head with a jerk that made the light bounce off his crooked jaw.
"You come here ask for scroll? Fine, Bring me son first, then you take scroll. Else— leave," he growled, smacking his palm onto the armrest of his chair, making Antonio flinch internally.
Entrail chuckled, tilting his head mockingly. "Yes, yes, the eternal barter. But sadly for you, Guildmaster, I do not deal in hostages. That's another department entirely, and frankly, I don't care about your son."
Antonio stepped forward slightly, attempting once again to de-escalate, though every word he uttered felt like swallowing fire.
"We acknowledge there was a lapse in protocol, Commander. But we successfully defended the scroll, as we always have. The Cult may have gotten close, but close is not a crime. The scroll was untouched. Still secure."
"And what?" Entrail cut him off mid-sentence, waving his hand like he was brushing off lint. "You want a medal? A pat on the back? 'Oh thank you, Serpents, for doing the bare minimum expected of you?'"
Antonio exhaled through his nose, forcing calm into his tone. "We are already investing in a new vault. Triple the defensive layering. Spatial seals and multi-plane warding. It will not happen again."
Entrail scoffed.
"No. It won't. Because that scroll won't be yours to guard anymore."
Antonio's jaw twitched.
He wanted to scream. To call the man out. To remind him that the Black Serpents had held that scroll longer than Entrail had held his rank.
But Monarch or not, Entrail was an officer of the universal government, and Antonio couldn't afford the fallout that would come from an open insult to an officer of the government, not now at least.
"And yet..." Entrail continued, rising slowly to his feet, pacing lazily toward the window as if admiring the skyline. "What irks me most is not your incompetence. It's what you've become, Dupravel."
He turned back toward the guildmaster, his smile twisting into something colder.
"I once thought of you as a rival. A warrior of purpose. Refined. Dignified. But now? Look at yourself. You grunt. You spit. You bark like a beast in a cage. It's no wonder the Cult nearly stole the scroll—you probably tried to eat the intruder instead of stopping him."
Dupravel rose to his feet with a snarl, his aura flaring erratically, but Antonio quickly stepped in front of him, placing a firm hand on the Guildmaster's chest.
"Guildmaster," he muttered low, "not here... we fight him here, we lose everything."
Dupravel growled, pacing back like a cornered animal, his limbs twitching with barely restrained madness.
Entrail smirked, satisfied by the reaction, then turned to face them both.
"You have two days," he said, enunciating each word with surgical precision. "Two. Days. Surrender the scroll willingly, or face me on the battlefield when I return with an army. And trust me, you don't want me to come here with an army."
Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode from the office, flanked by his guards.
Only once the sound of their boots had faded did Antonio let out the breath he had been holding, his body trembling not with fear— but fury.
He looked toward Dupravel, who had collapsed back into his chair, hands twitching, lips curling into a savage snarl as he muttered something incoherent under his breath.
Antonio said nothing.
But in the quiet that followed, one truth crystallized in his mind like a blade to the spine:
The Serpents were running out of time. And once the scroll was gone, they would be nothing more than any other normal guild in the universe, bound by the government's regulations and devoid of any special privileges.
And Antonio would die before letting that happen.
'I can't believe a simple Grandmaster level warrior has pushed us this deep into a shit hole.
Leo Skyshard... you better pray I never get my hands on you, because if I do, then death would simply be a luxury that you pray for but never get!' Antonio thought, as he grit his teeth in anger.
—---------------
It wasn't just the Guildmaster or the Vice Guildmaster of the Black Serpents feeling the heat from the Universal Government.
The pressure was everywhere, infecting the corridors, seeping through the ranks and poisoning the air like a slow, invisible toxin.
The morale of the common guild members had plummeted to unprecedented lows after the Cult robbery attempt.
Whispers turned to rumors. Rumors turned to headlines. And headlines turned to exits.
Poachers from rival guilds prowled the streets of Twin Fang Planet like wolves in tailored suits, exploiting the chaos, dangling lucrative contracts, immunity clauses, and relocation packages in front of Serpent talents like golden bait.
They didn't even need to hide it.
The news of the Universal Government demanding the return of the Cult Scroll had already been broadcast across half the galaxy..... and thanks to a coordinated smear campaign by rival recruiters who made sure every mid tier and high ranking Serpent knew exactly what was at stake, a mass exodus from the guild had begun.
In the last ten days alone, over 70,000 high-level members had defected.
Combat veterans, information analysts, tech specialists, asset managers, men and women who had once sworn loyalty to the Serpents, now vanishing into the arms of more stable guilds.
It was the largest exodus in the history of the organization.
And the worst part?
It showed no signs of slowing down.
The exits created vacuums.
The vacuums created instability.
And instability bred more fear than any external threat ever could.
The Black Serpents were hemorrhaging strength not from battle, but from within.
With every name struck from the database, with every clearance badge turned in, a message was being etched into the walls of the Twin Fang Headquarters, one that no glyph or spell could erase:
The once mighty guild was crumbling from the inside.
And while the Cult had failed to retrieve the scroll, they had succeeded in something far more devastating.
They had triggered the chain reaction.
They had planted the first crack.
They had set in motion the slow, merciless unraveling of the Serpents from the inside out.
And thus, at long last, they began their revenge on the guild that had slaughtered their previous Dragon Noah.
A reckoning written not in blood, but slow decay.
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC433: A Concerned Kaelith
Chapter 433: A Concerned Kaelith
(The Eternal Garden, Kaelith's Domain)
Kaelith strolled through the soft silver grass of the Eternal Garden, his bare feet gliding across the ground as though gravity held no sway over him, his hands loosely clasped behind his back, his expression calm and composed as always, while the sky above shimmered with layers of eternal twilight that never changed and never ended.
To anyone else, the moment would have felt tranquil, even serene, but for Kaelith, it was simply routine.
*KABOOM*
Suddenly, without a single warning, a bolt of lightning struck the ground behind him, splitting the space apart for less than a heartbeat, before a man appeared in its wake, kneeling down on one knee as the light faded around him.
"You called for me? Father?" the man asked, his voice deep, steady, and clear.
Kaelith turned around slowly, a faint smile rising on his lips as his golden eyes met the familiar features of his son.
"You don't have to bow before me, Raymond. I'm your father, remember?" Kaelith said gently, as he reminded his son to not bow before him as if he were a subordinate.
Raymond rose without a word, his posture respectful but not weak, his eyes locking onto Kaelith's with quiet caution, because although the god before him looked harmless right now, Raymond knew better than to be deceived by that facade.
Having witnessed firsthand what his father was truly capable of in battle when his patience wore thin, Raymond knew better than to ever get on his wrong side.
"I have called for you today, because there's some new development within the Cult that needs monitoring.
My sources say that the Cult of Ascension is on the verge of naming another Dragon," Kaelith began, as his gaze slowly drifted across the sky, a visible crease forming between his brows for the first time in centuries.
"I want you to begin preparations to eliminate him as soon as possible," he added, his voice still calm, but something sharp had crept into the tone beneath it.
"It will be done, Father," Raymond replied immediately, lowering his head once more before raising it again, only this time he didn't turn to leave.
Kaelith noticed the hesitation in his stance and waited.
"What is it?" he asked, already sensing the question forming in his son's mind.
Raymond looked straight at him now, his voice quieter than before.
"The Cult names Dragons all the time. Some of them live for a few years, some of them die immediately. However, none of them have ever mattered. Why is this one different? Why are you deploying me personally?"
Kaelith closed his eyes for a moment, then exhaled as though the question itself had dug out something buried deep, something he had been hoping not to say aloud.
"Because this time, I see something I haven't seen in over two thousand years," he said, opening his eyes again and looking past the clouds above, as if searching the fabric of the universe itself.
"Usually, in a planet filled with billions of mortals, you might find one or two with a single thread of fate connecting them to the wider flow of the universe. That's rare. That's manageable. But the amount of fate threads spiraling through Cult territory right now is something else entirely."
He paused for a second, his jaw tightening.
"I see clusters of fate. Webs being spun. Patterns forming across star systems. And they're all converging toward something. Or someone."
Raymond's breath caught, his mind trying to process the magnitude of what his father had just said.
Kaelith continued, his voice lower now.
"I haven't seen this many fate threads spinning out of the Cult territory since the time of my father. And if that pattern is returning... then it means this new Dragon is different. This one wasn't chosen by the Cult. He was chosen by the universe. And that means he needs to be eliminated before the pattern is complete."
Raymond gave a slow nod, no longer questioning it, his eyes narrowing as he accepted the weight of the mission.
Kaelith didn't say anything else. He didn't need to.
The garden returned to silence, but the mood had shifted.
Because if Kaelith was right, then this wasn't just another target.
This was the beginning of something far more dangerous. Something that could not be allowed to take root.
Something that reeked of the past.
*KABOOM*
Raymond left the Eternal Garden the same way he had entered, leaving Kaelith alone with his thoughts once more.
"The Timeless Assassin must not be allowed to roam between the seconds ever again.
Even the very possibility of it needs to be removed from the start." Kaelith muttered to himself, as he strongly hoped that his son Raymond would not fail him on this mission.
—---------------
(Meanwhile, Aegon Veyr)
Although Veyr felt extremely confident in his odds to take down Leo Skyshard in their upcoming battle, especially given the tier gap that currently existed between them, he knew better than to treat the fight as a foregone conclusion.
Leo's reputation in the circuits was nothing short of monstrous, and while Aegon had just ascended to the Transcendent realm, he was well aware that two months was more than enough time for Leo to close the gap and possibly even surpass it.
And that was something Veyr simply couldn't allow.
Which was why, even now, he stood shirtless in the open-air arena, blades drawn, sweat cascading down his tattooed frame, as he locked horns with the Fourth Elder in a sparring session that had long since surpassed the line of routine drills.
*Clang*
Their weapons clashed again, metal kissing metal with a ringing violence that echoed across the training yard, as the elder's twin daggers curved through the air like fangs searching for flesh, while Veyr's dual longswords responded with parries and counterstrikes executed so cleanly, they barely left room for correction.
The pace was brutal.
Not a moment of pause. Not a breath to spare.
Each exchange felt like a real attempt to kill and not merely a test to push one another.
And the fact that Aegon, barely days into the Transcendent realm, could hold his own so fluidly against a man who had been at this level for over four decades, spoke volumes of the young warrior's frightening potential.
"You're still not stepping in deep enough with your right heel when you pivot on a dual block," the Fourth Elder pointed out between swings, his instruction meant to help Veyr overcome his flaws.
"And you're still exposing your center when you flip into southpaw," Veyr replied, parrying a downward stab and twisting into a shoulder push that nearly broke the elder's balance.
For a moment, there was a flash of genuine amusement in the older man's eyes.
"You're learning fast," he muttered, before vanishing into a blur of movement again.
Veyr followed without hesitation, the wind trailing behind both as their silhouettes became little more than streaks of flickering afterimages.
Strike, block, faint, twist, sidestep.
The rhythm was relentless.
And yet through it all, Veyr's expression remained composed, his breath controlled, his eyes sharp.
He wasn't just fighting anymore.
He was observing. Adapting. Sharpening edges that were already pretty refined.
He knew that Leo's style wasn't brute-force based.
He had seen his circuit match tapes and he knew that Leo was unpredictable and that his fighting style was layered with illusion and misdirection.
A unique style built not just on power or precision, but on manipulation and perception.
And so Veyr tried to come up with such tricks of his own, while also coming up with defensive maneuvers to thwart any unexpected strategy.
He knew that he needed to become an absolute wall of technical perfection, an opponent so flawless in structure that illusion itself would collapse against him, for that was the only sure shot way to win against a man like Leo.
*Clang*
*Clang*
*Thrust*
*Pivot*
*Crack*
Another exchange ended in a mutual step-back, both men breathing heavily, though neither truly exhausted.
"You're getting better," the Fourth Elder finally said, lowering his daggers slightly as he rolled his shoulder with a grimace.
"Four days ago, I would've finished you in twenty moves. Today, I'm not sure I can even take you down in one hundred."
Veyr didn't respond immediately.
He sheathed one sword slowly, then turned to face the horizon, where twin moons hung low in the distance.
"I can't afford to underestimate him," he said quietly, his voice lacking bravado, but rich in conviction. "He might not be as good as me, but he's not as bad as you blokes either."
The Fourth Elder chuckled, nodding slightly as he placed a hand on Veyr's shoulder.
"Yeah, don't underestimate him, but don't give him too much credit either. In the end, nobody is as talented as you—"
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC434: Neutralized
Chapter 434: Neutralized
(Juxta Military Base, The Next morning, Leo's POV)
Next morning, Leo found himself sparring against Charles once more, this time within the base's crude training facility, as a large crowd gathered to watch the two go at it again.
The crowd was particularly curious to see how much stronger Leo had become since their last brutal encounter, and they were not disappointed by what he showed, as his improvements in such a short time had many in the audience buzzing with excitement.
Charles, ever the showman, stood across from Leo with a rusted plumbing pipe resting on his shoulder and not a trace of shame on his face as he twirled it between his fingers like it was a master-crafted sword.
"Don't hold back," Leo said, rolling his shoulders as he twirled his twin daggers into a reverse grip, his eyes locked onto Charles with quiet intensity.
"Do you want me to use two hands this round or continue using just one?" Charles replied, smirking as he gave the pipe a little flourish, drawing a few chuckles from the crowd.
Leo didn't respond with words. He responded by lunging forward.
*CRACK*
Their first exchange echoed through the dome as metal clashed against metal, Leo's daggers moving in swift arcs, slicing with surgical precision, while Charles used the sheer reach of his pipe to keep Leo's mobility in check, countering with wide sweeps and deceptively powerful jabs that forced Leo to step back each time he tried to close the distance.
But something was different today.
Each time Leo's emotions spiked, whether it was from irritation when a strike got too close, or a grin when he managed to produce a proper sequence he was proud of, his movements suddenly grew faster, sharper, his strikes heavier, as if his body were unlocking hidden reserves he hadn't known existed.
'What the hell? That strike was way stronger than the last one. I used the same stance, put the same amount of force behind it, but the output was very different...'
He realized, as he noticed a pattern beginning to form.
Regardless of what sort of emotion he felt, whether it was frustration, joy, anger, bloodlust, or even sheer will, his body suddenly became stronger, the more emotional he felt.
The Codex had informed him yesterday that this would happen, however, Leo never expected it to be this powerful, as he felt a minimum of 10-20% increase in his striking power when his emotions spiked.
"Kid... You're drawing strength from your emotions, aren't you?" Charles asked mid-swing, raising an eyebrow.
Leo didn't deny it.
"I think... yeah. I don't know why, but the more I feel, the more I can pull out of my body. It's like every emotion acts as a boost. Anger, joy, hunger for battle, anything. Even panic."
Charles grinned.
"That happens when you master the first stage of aura, as after that point, emotions become a tool to unlock power, just like mana.
They become an energy you can draw from, and it has a passive boost on your strength output" Charles explained, as he replicated the same results within himself, to show Leo that he could do it too.
"You can get anywhere between a 1% to a 50% boost in strength by learning how to harness emotions, but don't rely on it too much.
The more you use it early on in your life, the number you become to it later on, making it harder and harder to keep drawing from it.
So use it sparingly and for special occasions only!" Charles warned, as Leo nodded in understanding.
The duo kept going, their weapons colliding over and over as the fight turned more theatrical.
Leo leapt over sweeping strikes, while Charles continued to dodge with minimal effort, the two moving so quickly that only the highest-ranked soldiers in the crowd could follow their limbs clearly.
But then, mid-exchange, they both felt it.
A subtle spike. A disruption in the atmosphere, as the color red wasped into their vision, looking suspicious in a place that was meant to be safe.
Leo's eyes flicked sideways for just a second, and he saw it. A distinct red aura, shimmering like a mist, pooling around one of the spectators standing at the far right edge of the viewing gallery.
'Bloodlust!'
Leo thought, as he checked the threat out while continuing to spar, as he tried to gauge his strength level, but to his surprise failed, as the man seemed to be wearing some form of a cloaking device.
'Trouble–' Leo thought, as he glanced towards Charles, who seemed to be checking out the same guy.
Unlike him, Charles's mastery over the realm of intent allowed him to see more than just the bloody red pooling around the strange man.
Unlike him who just saw aura, Charles could see intent too, and he saw a sharp crimson threat extending from the man's position toward his neck, showing the precise trajectory of where the would-be assassin intended to strike him to take him out if given the chance.
'Did you see that, kid?' Charles asked without speaking, his eyes briefly flicking toward the assassin before returning to Leo, without missing a beat.
'Yeah, I did,' Leo replied silently as he acknowledged the signal with a slight nod.
As at that moment, the duo decided to work together on the fly to take the threat out at once.
*SWOOSH*
Leo flicked a dagger up into the air, and before gravity could reclaim it, Charles twisted his body into a clean spin, slamming the pipe in his hands into the handle of the tossed blade like a baseball bat, as he sent the dagger flying towards the assassin's neck.
*CLANG*
The dagger turned into a silver streak, slicing through the air with frightening speed.
*SLAM*
The assassin saw it too late, as although he moved, he did not move fast enough, the blade slicing through his skin and drawing gasps from the crowd, none of whom understood what the hell had just happened, except for the three involved.
'Shit, they saw through my disguise—' The assassin thought, as he turned to run, knowing full well that his cover was blown.
However, unfortunately for him, he didn't get too far.
Before he could take even a dozen steps, Charles was already gone from his previous spot.
There was no noise. No warning.
Just the sight of a severed head rolling across the slightly dirty floor, followed by a collapsing body.
Not a single person saw how it happened.
Even Leo had to blink twice before realizing the old man had just moved faster than his eyes could track, as nobody quite saw how Charles killed him, that too with a pipe that had no sharp edges at all.
"Huh?" Leo muttered in confusion, as Charles calmly reappeared beside him, the pipe still in his hand, his face back to its usual lazy smile.
"Just a lousy righteous faction agent, nothing much to worry about." he assured, barely loud enough for Leo to hear.
As Leo did not respond.
He just stared at the corpse.
Because for all his growth, for all the progress he had made...
He still realized that he was not even as strong as an ant in front of the real big shots of this universe.
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC435: The Indestructible Necklace
Chapter 435: The Indestructible Necklace
After the incident with the assassin, Charles quietly shifted Leo's training into a secured, restricted zone deep within the military base, in an area where only a handful of trusted personnel were allowed to access.
But it wasn't just for Leo's safety.
Charles used the move as bait, deliberately drawing out any other lingering assassins into a controlled perimeter he monitored round the clock. And over the next two days, his plan worked, as he eliminated four more agents from the righteous faction who had somehow slipped through the Cult's internal checks.
"This is absolutely outrageous. Our internal security is garbage if the righteous faction can infiltrate Cult territory this easily," Charles muttered, growing increasingly frustrated by the holes in their vetting system.
From the very next morning, he launched a reform.
A specialized unit within the army was ordered to carry out thorough background checks, surprise screenings, and intense cross-verification procedures on every soldier in the base, no matter their rank.
As the increased pressure and constant scrutiny made it nearly impossible for Black Serpent agents to remain hidden.
After the new system was put in place, the army caught and eliminated seven more assassins, as word quickly spread among the remaining soldiers that outsiders had infiltrated the base with the intent to assassinate their beloved Dragon Candidate, causing paranoia to take hold almost immediately.
Everyone began watching everyone.
Even the slightest hint of strange behavior was immediately reported to superiors, and within five days, the last of the infiltrated agents were flushed out and executed.
The message spread quickly amongst the Serpent ranks that infiltrating the Cult meant a certain death sentence, as not only did Leo have a whole army protecting him, he also had a Monarch Tier commander protecting him round the clock.
—-------------
Over the past seven days, Leo concentrated his efforts on breaching the next threshold of aura mastery by stepping into the realm of intent, while also dedicating time to mastering the strange yet powerful treasure he had recently taken from the Black Serpents Vault.
Yet, despite Charles's best efforts to simplify the concept of intent and ground it in practice, Leo made almost no headway in that direction, as his understanding of that elusive realm continued to evade him, floating just out of reach no matter how hard he chased it.
But while his progress in the realm of intent remained stagnant, a different kind of breakthrough emerged in his training with the necklace, as the rusted chain he had once considered a mundane relic began to reveal secrets that surpassed anything he had hoped for.
What he originally assumed to be a basic defensive artifact, something that offered passive protection for the neck and upper chest, turned out to possess a far more advanced function.... As hidden beneath its lifeless surface, was a form of mobile armor projection system that could be consciously directed to manifest on any specific region of his body at will.
When he willed it to move from his neck to his left arm, the armor's surface flowed with a controlled liquidity, rippling downward across the shoulder joint and slithering along the length of his bicep and forearm like living metal, before finally wrapping around his palm and fingers, hardening into the form of a gauntlet as if it had always belonged there.
The entire transition, from the base of his neck to the tips of his fingers, completed in approximately 0.11 seconds, a timeframe so fast it would be imperceptible to most, yet not fast enough to be considered truly instantaneous, and certainly not fast enough to save him if his timing slipped.
He could feel it moving across his skin as it traveled, a cold ripple that registered as a faint pressure more than a temperature shift, and this movement applied to all regions of the body, with the travel time dictated by distance.
So while covering his arm or upper torso happened in fractions of a second, shifting the armor down to his feet, his furthest body part, took around 0.22 seconds to complete, which in isolation sounded negligible, but in the midst of battle, where a tenth of a second could decide whether one lived or died, it was a delay that demanded constant awareness.
Still, minor lag aside, the armor's primary strength was unquestionable.
Once it manifested, it could not be pierced.
No weapon, no matter how sharp, fast, or reinforced, could punch through it once it was in place.
Even Charles, using a high-grade sword during sparring, failed to leave so much as a scratch, despite striking with focused intent and full force.
"Goddamn it, son. This armor really is impenetrable if even I can't scratch it with proper steel in hand," Charles muttered, clearly both amused and mildly irritated at the discovery.
But even invincibility had its limits.
Though it blocked all forms of penetration damage, the armor offered no mitigation against blunt force trauma.
The kinetic energy of a strike still passed through the plating and into the flesh beneath, which meant that while Leo could survive a spear to the chest without a puncture.... if the impact was strong enough, his ribs could still collapse under the pressure.
'I can't rely on it to block everything, what needs to be dodged still needs to be dodged,' Leo realized after a test run with Charles, as during their testing of the armors strength, a full powered blow from Charles managed to shatter the bones in his fingers clean through, even though the surface of the armor itself remained untouched.
As it was then that Leo realized that for all its power, this armor wasn't an all-shielding gift.
It couldn't make him a wall. It couldn't make him a tank. It couldn't stop him from being knocked out cold if the force behind the strike was overwhelming enough.
But what it could do was save him from death.
From assassination attempts, from well-placed kill shots, from arrows and blades and poisoned daggers meant to end him in a heartbeat.
So long as he trained himself to time it right, to place the armor exactly where it needed to be in the exact moment it was needed, this artifact could give him something no amount of physical strength ever could.
And so, every single day without fail, Leo trained.
He trained to move the armor in motion, during a dodge, while spinning mid-air, even as he rolled across the floor.
He practiced shifting it across difficult angles, sending it from his shoulder to his lower back, from his hip to his thigh, from his kneecap to his jawline, until the transitions burned into his muscle memory like second nature.
He trained to reduce hesitation, to eliminate wasted thought, to cut down the time it took to trigger a shift from conscious effort to subconscious reflex.
He would sprint toward a swinging weapon and wait until the very last instant before triggering the armor, forcing himself to trust the timing, forcing himself not to flinch, forcing himself to believe that 0.2 seconds was enough to save him.
He let Charles strike him repeatedly with dulled weapons just to learn how much of the impact he could survive and how much pain he could afford to absorb if the alternative was death.
And through all of it, Leo came to a quiet conclusion.
The armor was not perfect.
It did not make him immortal.
But it gave him a layer of defense that no one else had, a sliver of insurance when he danced too close to death.
And for someone like him, someone who would always be hunted, always be targeted, always be outnumbered and underestimated, that was more valuable than any sword, spear, or conventional shield he could find otherwise in the universe.
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC436: Final Warning
Chapter 436: Final Warning
(40 days before the fight, Leo's POV)
*SHING*
*SHING*
*Skiddd*
The sharp clash of steel echoed through the training chamber as Leo sparred with Dumpy for the first time in what felt like ages.
The Ancient Swamp Frog, having finally broken free from the three prisons Charles had ordered him to escape before he could reunite with Leo, was visibly agitated, his eyes brimming with tears from their long separation.
However, even so, he threw himself into the spar with full intensity, determined to help prepare his Lord Father for the upcoming battle with Veyr in forty days, as he refused to hold anything back.
Like Veyr, Dumpy too was a Transcendent Tier warrior, making him a reliable benchmark for the kind of pressure Leo could expect in the real fight.
However, while both Dumpy and Veyr were Transcendent Tier warriors, their fighting styles were sure to be extremely different.
With erratic, inhumane movements, the ability to expand and contract without warning, and dangerously acidic poison spit, Dumpy created a chaotic and unpredictable battle rhythm, which was impossible to replicate for any human, and hence not what Leo could expect while facing Veyr.
However, it was invaluable practice regardless.
"RIBBIT," Dumpy croaked, as he came at Leo again with his full strength, twin blades singing through the air as his body bulged and shrank in rapid succession.
'Not today,' Leo thought, as he darted to the side with [StormFlash Traverse], but Dumpy's reach was wild and elastic.
The frog extended one arm like a whip and brought his blade crashing toward Leo's exposed flank.
*CLANG!*
A burst of armor shimmered around Leo's forearm just in time.
The Indestructible Necklace responded instantly, conjuring a curved armor plate over Leo's forearm just as the blade closed in.
"As expected of Lord Father, his defence is truly impenetrable," Dumpy praised, as although the strike landed cleanly, the armor rendered it harmless.
However, despite praising Leo, Dumpy didn't pause.
He expanded again, using his swollen mass to displace air and force Leo back, before instantly shrinking as he spat a line of green acid toward his legs.
Leo responded without thought. The necklace activated again, and liquid metal flowed over his boots and ankles like a second skin, hardening just as the acid struck the floor and splashed upward.
*HISSS*
The tile in front of him hissed and cracked, however, his own feet remained untouched thanks to the armor.
"You're really going for blood today," Leo muttered, flicking sweat off his brow as he shifted into battle stance once again.
"RIBBIT," Dumpy let out a high-pitched war cry and spun forward, alternating strikes between his swords with blistering speed.
The left blade came for Leo's ribs, as Leo used the necklace once more, forming a gleaming forearm guard that absorbed the blow with a harsh metallic clang, while simultaneously blocking the attack coming from the right with his dagger.
*SHINGG–*
*Push*
Pushing Dumpy back with raw strength that was enhanced with the power of emotions, Leo took the opportunity to strike Dumpy's exposed chest with his boot, kicking the frog squarely in his torso.
*BAM*
Dumpy staggered back a couple steps, as Leo used the opportunity to activate [Blade Switch], vanishing in a blur of mirage-like movement before reappearing behind Dumpy.
*Slash*
Leo struck his pet at the gap beneath its shoulder, but although the blade landed, it failed to produce any significant damage, as the steel melted after coming in contact with Dumpy's highly corrosive skin, managing only to leave a shallow cut.
"The fuck?" Leo muttered in disbelief, as Dumpy turned and pushed him back with a series of sword strikes, as from that point onwards, Leo failed to land a single blow on Dumpy for the next forty minutes of their spar.
Dumpy's movements were unnatural and wild as he fought at a level far beyond what most would expect from a simple beast.
'Not bad... this beast is a good protector for the boy,' Charles thought, as he sat in the far corner of the room, watching the spar unfold with great interest.
His eyes followed the flow of combat carefully, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of both combatants.
While he felt very impressed with how well Leo was holding his own against a higher-tiered opponent, he felt equally impressed with Dumpy's ingenuity in battle.
Just like his master, Dumpy's natural battle IQ was very high. And although he too had some glaring flaws in his defensive posture and raw attacking strength, what he lacked in brute power, he made up for in speed and adaptability, as the beast was undoubtedly a nightmare to face one on one.
"Together, these two can become unstoppable someday," Charles muttered to himself, as he could not help but shiver at the thought of watching them tear apart a battlefield full of enemies alone.
—---------
(Meanwhile, Raymond)
Raymond arrived at the Command Ship, floating just beyond the perimeter of planet Juxta, from where he planned to spy on the Cult territories ahead. But before he could settle into position, a crippling pressure crashed down onto his spine, sudden and overwhelming.
It felt as if the very air around him had thickened, like invisible bands of force coiling tightly around his body.
His breath caught in his throat.
His knees bent slightly, and for a moment, his vision blurred.
The sensation wasn't physical, but spiritual in nature, dense with authority and warning.
"How have you been... Uncle?" Raymond muttered through gritted teeth, the words forced out against the oppressive weight pressing into his back.
He couldn't see Soron, but he felt him—felt those eyes looking down on him from somewhere far below.
It wasn't a sight in the traditional sense. It was something deeper. A spiritual gaze that pierced the Command Ship from the surface of planet Ixtal, reaching out to him like a cold whisper against his soul.
Soron's attention was fixed and absolute. Raymond felt as though the god's will had singled him out completely, freezing him in place like prey under the stare of a predator, as despite being a Monarch himself, Raymond could not so much as twitch a muscle on his fingers.
The warning from Soron was clear : Do not proceed. Do not dare spy on Cult territories or try to enter Cult controlled space, or the consequences shall be grave.
*Gasp*
Gasping for air, Raymond steadied himself and clenched his fists. His body trembled slightly from the soul pressure that Soron exuded, but he still refused to lower his head.
"I can't go back empty-handed. My father has tasked me to kill the Dragon, and I can't return with nothing," he said, each word laced with desperation and resolve.
Soron gave no reply. There was no sound. No voice. Just a lingering sense of amusement, faint and distant, like the curl of a smirk that was felt rather than seen.
The ancient god had no need to speak. His message had already been delivered in full.
As long as Raymond remained at the edge, his presence would be tolerated. But the moment he tried to peer into the Cult territory, to scan or overstep, Soron would act to eliminate him.
This was Raymond's only warning. The next time he peered into Cult land, he would face the consequences.
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC437: Stalled Progress
Chapter 437: Stalled Progress
(30 days before the fight, Leo's POV)
A month before the fight, Leo finally began to feel the weight of reality pressing down on him, as the ticking clock grew louder and louder with each passing day.
While he had made some marginal improvements on the combat front, thanks in part to Charles's persistent guidance that helped refine certain aspects of his combat technique and cleaned up certain areas of inefficiency, the real breakthrough he desperately sought in the realm of intent remained frustratingly out of reach.
Despite hours spent in the study of color red, Leo could not for the life of him push past the barrier that stood between him and the next stage of aura mastery.
"For the hundredth time, son, it will happen when it is meant to happen. These things don't follow a fixed path or schedule," Charles muttered, his tone laced with visible irritation as he rubbed the back of his neck, fighting the rising edge in his voice.
"You want to see intent? Then keep watching the aura. Look deeper. Look again. Find something you missed. That's all you can do," he added, barely holding back his frustration, not because Leo was asking questions, but because he genuinely had nothing new to offer.
Leo had been pestering him every single day for a better explanation, a clearer path forward, but Charles had already shared everything he knew—every theory, every anecdote, every lesson passed down from his knowledge of walking down that road before.
However, the truth remained that there was no secret method to understanding intent, nor any shortcut.
Understanding intent required the complete comprehension of a particular aura color at a level so refined, so nuanced, that something simply shifted inside the practitioner.
It was an awakening, not a milestone, and there was no reliable way to measure where someone stood along that path.
And that, more than anything else, frustrated Charles the most, because he could not even tell how far Leo had come or how much further he still had to go.
He had no concrete answers to give the boy, only patience to offer, and that, he feared, was running dangerously thin on both sides.
"I know, I know, Commander, I know I have to be patient, but the truth is, with the way I am right now, it's impossible for me to take on someone at the Transcendent Tier," Leo muttered, his voice weighed down with frustration, his fists clenched slightly by his sides.
"I can't even win a single fight against Dumpy, not once in the hundreds of times we've sparred, and the best I can do is last a bit longer than twenty minutes before I get taken down. And even that, I sometimes feel, is only because Dumpy holds back and doesn't go all out the way he should," he added, exhaling sharply as Charles gave a slow shake of his head, disappointment flickering behind his eyes.
"It's a documented fact that beasts are generally weaker than warriors of the same tier, which means Veyr is probably even stronger than Dumpy, but if I can't even beat the weaker opponent, what chance do I stand against the real thing?"
Leo's voice grew louder as the weight of it all started to spill out, his aura thickening until it coated the air around him in a heavy maroon fog that pulsed with tension.
"Without unlocking this damn intent, the one thing you keep saying might level the field, I'm definitely not winning this fight, Commander. I'll just end up embarrassing myself in front of the entire Cult," he finished, his voice tight as his eyes burned with helpless anger.
"I know you want to do your best in this fight, son. I mean, who wouldn't?" Charles replied after a pause, his tone steady as he took a deep breath and looked Leo straight in the eye. "There will be billions of people watching, all waiting to see the Dragon Candidates fight like it's the greatest spectacle of their lives."
"But the harsh truth is, there's nothing else left for us to do besides sharpening your combat instincts and continuing the study of red aura.
Your mana circulation is already the most refined I've ever seen in someone your age. Your internal conduction is cleaner than most Transcendent-level warriors, even though you're still just a Grandmaster, and your mana output isn't lacking either."
"You've pushed that side of your training as far as it can go for now, and you'll be hitting your tier ceiling soon enough whether you like it or not," Charles continued, his tone curt and final.
"As for physical strength, you can't expect some miracle growth spurt in thirty days. Sure, we can work on it, squeeze out maybe one or two, at best three percent improvement, but let's be honest with each other, Leo, that's not going to tilt the fight in your favor."
He exhaled heavily and reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a fresh cigarette, tapping it once before lighting it with practiced ease.
"That only leaves skills," he muttered through his teeth as the flame touched the tip. "But to be completely honest with you, son, I don't see the point in stuffing more techniques into your head right now, not when that same time could be used to keep chasing intent."
"Because skills, at best, might help you stall. They might buy you a second, help you escape something fatal, or catch an opponent off guard. But intent... intent will reshape your entire approach to battle. It will give you control over the flow, the tempo, the very rhythm of a fight. And that's your only real shot at surviving what's coming."
"So yes, I get it. I know you're frustrated. I know it feels like we're spinning our wheels and hoping for a miracle. But this really is the best plan we've got, and unless something drastic changes, all we can do is trust the process and hope the breakthrough comes before the fight begins." Charles concluded, as he picked up his sparring pipe once more, and gestured for Leo to fall into battle stance.
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC438: A new concept
Chapter 438: A new concept
(14 days before the fight, Leo's POV)
Two weeks remained.
And with each passing hour, Leo's patience thinned further, like a rope stretched near its breaking point, fraying at the edges no matter how hard he tried to stay composed.
He had been following Charles's training routine religiously, but no matter how many times he circled back to the basics, no matter how many layers of red aura he dissected or how many drills he repeated under Charles's watchful eye, the breakthrough he sought remained stubbornly out of reach.
And so, today, he made a decision.
Combat training would no longer dominate his schedule.
From now until the day of the fight, he would reduce sparring to no more than two hours a day, just enough to keep his instincts from dulling, while the rest of his time would be devoted to the one thing that still eluded him :
Mastering aura and finally unlocking the next stage for visualizing intent.
---
Every morning, his training began by sitting across from Charles in the combat chamber, where the commander then radiated a variety of bloodlust patterns for him to study, one after another, each subtly different in color yet similar in shape.
At first glance, all bloodlust looked red, an aura soaked in the color of violence, but as Leo stared longer, deeper, and began cataloging the shifting tones that danced within that red, he realized that the hue was not constant.
It pulsed. It fluctuated. It evolved.
Over time, an understandable pattern began to emerge, as Charles verbally spoke of the change in his internal thoughts, at the same time as the colors changed around his body, which contributed to Leo better understanding what was exactly happening.
As after observing Charles for the last month or so, Leo managed to make a few key conclusions :
Firstly, the broader the red aura extended around someone, the stronger their desire was to kill.
That much was simple.
A weak thought, like a vague inclination to strike, barely flickered around the body like a soft mist.
But when that same person entered a true killing mindset, when the action was not just contemplated but committed to, the aura swelled outward, growing wider and heavier, until the very air around one felt suffocating to those untrained in its presence.
Leo started recognizing these ranges quickly, assigning rough metrics in his mind. A foot-wide aura? Idle thought. Five feet? Genuine intent. Ten? A committed killer.
But it wasn't just about size.
The shade mattered too.
Dark, muddy crimson appeared when someone fantasized about killing something that held no emotional weight to them— like stepping on a cockroach or wringing the neck of a chicken.
The energy in those cases felt cold, detached.
But when Charles simulated killing someone of significance, like a comrade or a former teacher, the red around him changed. It brightened. Became livelier, almost like fire, as if infused with something deeper like grief, rage, regret.
As it was only then that Leo understood that bloodlust was not simply shaped by the desire to kill, but was rather shaped by a variety of factors that included the emotion behind that kill.
And so he watched. He cataloged. He memorized.
Bright red, dull red, pinkish red, pale red.
The aura didn't change based on the opponent's strength. It changed based on what the kill meant to the owner.
The deeper the emotional weight behind the act, the more vibrant the red.
The more casual or insignificant the target, the duller it became.
It was no longer just about violence. It was about meaning.
And that was a very basic concept of aura that he only learned after spending days studying Charles and the changes in the aura that he projected.
---
Later that day, Leo crouched beside a patch of dry soil near the edge of the courtyard, elbows resting on his knees as he stared down at the ground with a strange intensity.
Two insects, one a beetle, the other a small mantis, clashed below him, locked in a miniature duel that seemed to carry the weight of the world for them, even if the world above barely acknowledged their existence.
Their legs scraped, their mandibles clashed, their bodies twisted and slammed into one another again and again, and it was halfway during this fight that Leo finally saw it.
Red.
A faint outline of it, barely more than a flicker at first, pooling around each insect in irregular bursts that grew stronger with every strike.
It stunned him.
Because up until now, he had only ever perceived bloodlust around humans, and this moment marked the first time he witnessed its presence in a beast.
And yet, rather than just shock, the sight served as an important confirmation for him, as it validated a theory he had long suspected but never fully embraced due to the absence of concrete proof:
The theory that bloodlust was not just a human trait.... but was rather something universal.
It did not belong to the wise or the wicked, the noble or the trained.
It was not a mark of intelligence or culture.
It was a fundamental truth of sentient life.
The desire to survive. To kill. To dominate.
It existed in every living being, regardless of form, regardless of thought.
And in that instant, as the beetle pierced the mantis through the neck and dragged its twitching body back toward a crack in the stone, Leo saw something deeper.
The beetle's red shifted.
From dull to bright.
From routine to meaningful.
Because at that moment, the beetle wasn't just killing.
It was feeding, it was living, it was winning.
And it was then that Leo truly understood—
Bloodlust was not just the desire to kill, but a reflection of what that kill meant.
For the beetle, this kill now meant that it and its family wouldn't go hungry for the next few days.
However, if a human killed the same mantis, it would probably mean nothing to them.
'To truly understand the intention behind a kill, I need to grasp the reason behind why someone kills in the first place....' Leo realized at that moment, as he finally uncovered the key ingredient he had been missing all along in his pursuit of understanding intent.
Charles had repeated time and again that understanding the reason behind an action was essential in his progress, yet only now, after observing two tiny insects battle for their life, did Leo finally comprehend what that advice truly meant.
For the beetle, the reason behind the action was survival. Hunger. Duty to its kin.
However, if he attempted the same kill, then the reason for him could be something as simple as killing out of casual annoyance, or just because he could do it without facing any consequence.
And so it became clear that unlocking intent was not just about the act of killing, but also the depth of meaning behind it.
"If meaning shapes aura... then I need to understand more than just colors," Leo whispered to himself, fingers curling into the dirt. "I need to understand what a kill costs. What it gives. What it takes away. Only then... will intent show itself."
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC439: Match Rules
Chapter 439: Match Rules
(10 days before the fight, The First Elder's POV)
It took the Elder's Council forty-six days of intense debate after the fight between Leo and Aegon Veyr was announced to finalize the venue, the rules, the officiating referee, the ticket pricing, and every other logistical concern that came attached with an event of this magnitude.
This delay was mostly caused by the unwillingness of either camp to compromise or even engage in proper communication with the other, as neither side wanted to appear weak or conceding after their huge internal brawl following the previous Council meeting.
With every elder prioritizing personal pride over practical execution, even the simplest decisions devolved into full-scale arguments that required dozens of clarifications and redrafts before they could be passed.
The venue came first.
After considerable back-and-forth, the match was eventually approved to be held on Planet Tithia, since it housed the largest spectator arena in the entire Cult territory — the 'Dragon Lewis Hamilton Arena', named in honor of the second ever Dragon of the Cult, Sir Lewis Hamilton.
Naturally, not everyone was happy about this.
Most elders wanted the fight hosted on a planet under their own jurisdiction, and many openly protested the decision through official letters laced with passive-aggressive insults and thinly veiled threats. But in the end, size and neutrality won out, and Tithia was selected as the official venue.
The rules of the fight sparked even greater friction.
Some elders wanted a custom-built fight floor with unpredictable terrain to inject more drama into the fight. Others argued for allowing paralyzing poisons, suggesting Leo be given every possible fallback in case he lacked the strength to win cleanly.
But such allowances were ultimately denied.
It was decided that the match would be held on a flat, circular sandpit under standard Universal Circuit rules. No poison. No terrain manipulation. A pure, unmodified duel between two fighters that would be decided solely on their skill, strength, and weapon mastery.
Selecting the officiating referee, however, was surprisingly easy.
Captain Max Verstappen, a senior soldier in service of the Cult army, was appointed with unanimous approval.
His reputation for impartiality and battlefield excellence made him the rare candidate who was both respected and feared by both sides equally. Not a single elder raised objection to his appointment, which in itself felt like a miracle.
The last and most divisive point of discussion was the ticket pricing.
Everyone understood the financial implications. The revenue generated from a match of this scale was sure to be astronomical, and since Planet Tithia fell under the First Elder's domain, the default assumption was that all proceeds would go to him.
Naturally, the other elders refused to accept that.
Many demanded that the fight be made free to the public, disguising their demands under the noble idea of inclusivity. But the First Elder knew this was nothing but a strategic ploy to avoid revenue sharing.
Besides, making it free was not only unrealistic but dangerous. With the amount of excitement the fight had generated, an open-door policy would all but guarantee chaos, with stampedes, overcrowded sectors, and potential riots erupting across the arena.
And so, a compromise was struck.
Tickets would be sold on a first-come-first-serve basis at the nominal price of one silver coin per person, with strict booth management to maintain crowd order.
Allocation of tickets would be done proportionally based on each planet's Cult population, with ticket booths opened across every sector within Cult territory.
It was a delicate balance between fairness, safety, and profit.
Because with how much the commoners believed in the Dragon, there would be no surprise if individual tickets started to sell at upwards of 50,000 gold coins a piece if it were sold via a public auction.
—------
The reaction of the commoners to the match announcement was immediate and overwhelming.
No sooner had the rules and ticket prices been publicly announced than chaos descended on the streets of every Cult-controlled planet.
Despite the ticket booths being scheduled to open only after forty-eight hours, thousands of citizens rushed to secure a place in line, unwilling to risk missing their only chance to witness what could be the crowning moment of the next Dragon.
Rich merchants abandoned their stores. Poor laborers dropped their tools.
Even the disabled arrived in wheelchairs, rolling over the muddy cobblestones with every last bit of their strength, as they refused to miss this historic moment just because of their physical inability.
Beggars used their last silver coin as a placeholder, defiantly vowing to go hungry for a month or even dying happy if they could witness this fight, as although 1 silver coin was a lot of money for them, they still forked it out for this monumental occasion.
For once, social status ceased to matter within the Cult.
There were no nobles or peasants anymore, only believers in the legend of the next Dragon, each one driven by a shared obsession to watch the ancient prophecy unfold before their eyes.
Jobs got forgotten, meals got skipped and hundreds of families were left waiting.
Because for once, nothing mattered more than this.
Within just two hours of the announcement, ticket queues swelled so drastically that public squares outside booth zones turned into human walls, overflowing with desperate bodies and chaotic energy.
Roads were blocked, shops shuttered, transit hubs frozen.
Daily life came to a grinding halt, replaced by a single, silent urgency that pulsed across the cities like a heartbeat.
Local authorities attempted to step in, after things got out of control.
Police sirens wailed, and baton-wielding enforcers marched in with the intent to disband the gatherings, citing public obstruction and civil disruption laws.
But the people stood firm.
Old men clutched their walking sticks like spears, refusing to move. Some openly wept, shouting that they had waited their entire lives for a moment like this. That even if the police cracked their skulls open or dragged them to prison, they would crawl their way back just to witness the crowning of the next Dragon.
Mothers stood with babies tied to their backs. Teenagers stood barefoot after running for miles. Former veterans saluted each other in the line, standing at attention not for a general, but for the hope of witnessing the next Dragon live in action.
And so, in the end, it was not the people who surrendered. It was the police.
Faced with a crowd too large to contain and too unified to intimidate, they backed down, slowly retreating as city officials scrambled for alternative strategies.
Makeshift barricades were raised to guide the lines instead of disbanding them, and emergency water stations were deployed just to keep people from fainting in the heat.
The same scene unfolded on every planet within the Cult's domain.
From the icy mining colonies of Planet Gantor to the fertile trade ports of Planet Zian Prime, every booth was now surrounded by a tidal wave of people, each one unwilling to give up their chance to be there in person when history was being written at the Sir Lewis Hamilton Arena.
Because this was not just an ordinary fight.
It was the moment that marked the dawn of a new era.
The moment after which the Cult's thirty two year long wait for its new Dragon would finally come to an end.
Contact - ToS
Timeless AssassinC440: The Rising Strength Of Aegon Veyr
Chapter 440: The Rising Strength Of Aegon Veyr
(Somewhere amidst a secret training field, hidden within mountains, the Fourth Elder's POV, 7 days before the fight)
*Pant*
*Pant*
Veyr's body was drenched in sweat from head to toe, steam rising from his bare shoulders as though his very blood was boiling beneath the surface, radiating heat and exertion in equal measure.
The tall mountains that surrounded the training ground bore the scars of dozens of failed attempts: trenches carved into stone, entire ridges flattened, and black scorch marks scattered across the walls from the shockwaves that had cracked them apart like brittle shells.
However, the success that Veyr chased seemed to still elude him based on the focused expression on his face.
Veyr stood motionless, blade in hand, head tilted slightly downward as he stared at the next mountain in front of him, his gaze sharp and unwavering. Unlike the shattered peaks all around, this one still stood whole, untouched, almost as if it were daring him to try again.
For the past thirty days, Veyr had committed himself entirely to mastering the Cult's most destructive offensive technique under the Monarch Tier, known as [Final Slash] — a move of such terrifying magnitude that it was said to cut clean through mountains and even rupture the Earth beneath if charged with enough mana.
The Fourth Elder had observed the boy endure all manner of hardship in pursuit of this goal.
He had trained through violent storms, ignored the agony of starvation, and pushed forward through bone-cracking exhaustion that would have crippled most men.
Veyr had surpassed what should have been the absolute limits of human endurance and continued onward with frightening resolve to master this technique that was both cruel and difficult to learn.
Even a slight misstep in energy control or the angle of release could result in catastrophic backlash — torn ligaments, ruptured muscles, or worse.
And yet, despite the danger, Veyr advanced with every attempt.
His last strike had carved a deep gash across the mountain's surface, nearly splitting it in two. But it stopped just short at the final moment, like a sword pausing an inch before the executioner's call.
But now... now was different.
This time, Veyr's fingers tightened around the hilt of his blade, and the atmosphere around him grew dense, vibrating with a cold sharpness that made even the Fourth Elder's seasoned skin prickle in warning.
A wave of spiritual pressure erupted from beneath Veyr's feet, rippling outward like a heartbeat buried in the land itself. The Elder, sensing the change, instinctively took a step back as unease gripped his chest.
His eyes widened.
His throat constricted.
His heart began to pound faster with a sense of anxious anticipation.
'This time the boy is close. I can feel it...' the Fourth Elder thought, watching intently as Veyr's body ignited with brilliant silver light, the glow burning so fiercely that it cloaked his figure in radiant luminescence, while thousands of motes of mana swirled around him in chaotic, almost reverent, harmony.
The sword in his hand began to tremble, not because he himself shuddered, but because the weapon itself was unable to contain Veyr's coiled energy, as though it too desperately awaited the moment of release.
And then, with a fluidity that defied logic, Veyr vanished.
A blinding flash split the sky as the young prodigy reappeared mid-air in front of the mountain, both hands gripping the hilt of his blade as he brought it down in a flawless, diagonal arc.
*SLASH*
The mountain in front of him didn't crack, as for a brief second, it appeared untouched, the silence drawing out like a breath held too long.
But then, moments later, a perfect diagonal line revealed itself across the face of the mountain, the upper half slowly beginning to shift — sliding downward and to the side with a quiet rumble, as though it were nothing more than paper.
*RUMBLE*
The precision was absolute. The depth, breathtaking.
And yet, it still wasn't over.
The residual energy from the strike continued upward, unnoticed at first, invisible to the naked eye. But once it reached the clouds high above, the sky responded.
*BOOM*
A colossal explosion roared across the heavens as the clouds were torn apart by the force of the aftershock.
A two-mile-wide ring of sky was instantly cleared, stripped of its cover, exposing the blue above as the shockwave echoed outward, thundering through the valley like the scream of a vengeful god.
"Oh, Mercy Lord Soron—"
The Fourth Elder stumbled back a step, his balance shaken.
His robes whipped about wildly. Sweat ran freely down his spine. His lips parted in shock, but no coherent words came out as his mind fell silent.
"This... This..." he finally whispered, the sound barely audible, as awe and fear mixed freely in his voice.
If any part of him still doubted that Veyr could lose the upcoming duel, even by the smallest margin or an accidental slip, then that belief had been utterly destroyed now, crushed beneath the weight of what he had just witnessed.
Because what stood before him now was no longer a boy.
Only a monster.
*Sheath*
The soft click of the blade sliding into its scabbard marked the end of the demonstration, and as the echo faded, the Fourth Elder broke into applause, clapping his hands with wild fervor like an excited fan watching a hero take form.
*Clap*
*Clap*
*Clap*
"Aww come on. This wasn't even a real challenge," Veyr muttered, waving the elder off with mock humility. But the light in his eyes betrayed the truth.
A quiet satisfaction gleamed behind Veyr's eyes, as he exhaled slowly, allowing himself the smallest, most telling of smiles.
He had done it.
He had finally mastered [Final Slash], a feat that not only made him stronger as a warrior, but also tilted the scales of the upcoming fight dramatically in his favor.
"Oh Skyshard, I hope you last long enough for me to use this beauty in battle.
It will be a shame if I can't even show my real strength to the spectators because you were too weak to draw this out of me.
I'm not asking for too much, just entertain me long enough so I can end you with this..." Veyr said at the end, as an evil smile played out on his lips.
Contact - ToS