After training, I had dinner with my wife and the staff from the Lan manor, including the chauffeur. I made it a point to eat with them. I didn't care about ranks and statuses – we were all humans. It was more fun to eat together.
It helped that I was from another world and thus didn't place too much emphasis on differences in statuses and all that nonsense. I always found those sort of nonsense exceedingly pretentious. Why couldn't we all get along with each other?
After dinner, we returned to our rooms, and I began setting stuff up and placing artifacts and flags around the room. Lan Bei Er raised an eyebrow, clearly curious about what I was doing.
"What's the matter?"
"We have unexpected visitors again," I whispered. She sighed.
"What do they want this time?"
"It's not us they are after," I assured her. "They are after her highness the seventh princess this time."
"Oh." Lan Bei Er's eyes widened. "Shouldn't we help her?"
"Yeah, I'm just waiting for them to make the first move before ambushing them. It's easier to take them out if they don't know we're coming. Otherwise we would put them on high alert, which will make it more difficult for us to eliminate them."
"I'm surprised you're actually helping her highness," Lan Bei Er admitted. "Admittedly, I know you well enough by now to be confident that you're a good person who pretends to be a villainous demonic cultivator, but you're always going around saving and helping people, but her highness was pretty mean to you, wasn't she? She even tried to kill you."
"Yeah, but I don't know how I would justify to Huang Qian Jin if I killed his sister." I suspected they were half-siblings, born from different mothers though from the same father, but even so, that bond wasn't something so easily dismissed.
"Oh, that's true…" Lan Bei Er looked at me sympathetically. "But I don't think he'll blame you for her death…."
"Are you trying to persuade me not to help her?" I asked, amused. Lan Bei Er jolted up in shock and she shook her head frantically, waving her hands.
"No, no! Of course not! I'm actually relieved that you intend to help her highness! I was prepared to persuade you to do so!" She sulked. "But it's not fun if you already want to help her from the start. Then my role as the voice of reason and moral virtue is redundant."
"I don't think that's your role…"
Indeed, Lan Bei Er was indispensable in helping other people. Yesterday, after I beat up the royal guard and Huang Wan Hai, she had treated them and healed their injuries. If she hadn't, they would be wiped out by the assassins before I could intervene. Now that they were back to full health, even if the assassins struck, they wouldn't be able to instantly kill them.
Or so I hoped.
Anyway, it was best to pretend not to notice the lurking assassins, so I went to bed and switched off the lights. Even so, I kept my qi sense extended outward to keep track of their positions. As I suspected, they were moving toward the seventh princess's room, getting ready to strike.
What was it with people attacking whenever they thought their target was asleep? Oh, right. It was the best time to strike, when the target was least on their guard. Never mind.
There was a crash as the assassins smashed through the windows and rolled along the floor. The royal guard, always on high alert especially on escort missons like this, was already up, their qi auras flaring as they went into battle.
"Time to join in," I told my wife as I jumped out of bed and jogged toward the room. Then I paused for a moment when I sensed a huge explosion of qi that obliterated the room and sent the royal guard and seventh princess flying.
Exiting the room, I caught sight of a single guy in hood and black robes floating in midair, his body crackling with white and blue qi. I felt an ominous dread running down my spine.
"Saint…Realm…"
Yeah, the assassin was Saint Realm. Somebody must really want Huang Wan Hai dead.
"Ugh…"
Her Royal Guard were scattered across the place, wounded and battered, dripping with blood.
"Bei Er, please help them."
"On it!"
Lan Bei Er rushed forward. Meanwhile, the assassin pointedly ignored the wounded royal guard and charged at the downed Huang Wan Hai. I actually felt sorry for the royal guard. It wasn't that they were weak, even though they were made to look like complete jokes over the past couple of nights. They were all Innate Realm cultivators, so they were actually pretty strong…comparatively.
It was just their bad luck that they kept running into stronger opponents the last couple of nights. Me, who was at peak Innate Realm, and now an assassin at Saint Realm. These were the kind of opponents you didn't really meet everyday. Hell, you rarely meet them even in many years. Saint Realm dudes were probably the equivalent of sect leaders. Even the Ten Thousand Sword Pavilion only had thirteen Saint Realm cultivators, or so I believe. And they were the most powerful sect in the Tian Xuan Continent.
I was surprised that there was a Saint Realm cultivator who was hired as an assassin. He must be really desperate.
"Who are you?!" Huang Wan Hai demanded. "Why do you want my life?"
The assassin burst out laughing. "Isn't that obvious? I'm an assassin. I was hired to kill you."
"By who?!"
The assassin didn't answer. Instead, he slashed at her with a sword that she blocked with her spear. Despite her successful parry, the difference in strength was too much. A blast sent the seventh princess hurtling away. She hit the ground with a groan and tumbled over, blood trickling from her mouth. Leaning on her spear, she steadily got to her feet.
"One of my brothers must have sent you." She coughed out a mouthful of blood and wiped her face. "Which one? First brother? Second brother? Maybe fifth brother? Or perhaps third sister?"
Wow…yeah, the royal family politics were labyrinthine and pretty complex. The higher ranking princes and princesses were always scheming against each other, to try and take out their rivals for the throne so that they would be the next emperor or empress. I was glad I wasn't born into the royal family. And this made me harden my resolve not to have anything to do with them, with Huang Qian Jin being the exception.
"You're pretty astute, your highness," the assassin finally deigned to reply. He seemed to smirk under that mask of his. "But you should also be intelligent enough to figure out that I will never expose the identity of my client."
Huang Wan Hai gritted her teeth and pointed her spear at her assailant, but she knew she would be unable to win. The assassin lunged at her, his blade flashing in the night air.
Then he suddenly twisted in midair to block a few arrows that detonated against his sword, sending him crashing several meters away. He hit the ground, landing on his feet and skidding a few paces back. He lifted his head and glared at me. I was standing a distance away, my smoking Hou Yi bow in my hands.
"You…!" he growled. I cocked my head to the side and shrugged.
"Sorry, but she's the sister of my sworn brother, so I can't let you kill her."
"Your sworn brother?" Huang Wan Hai repeated incredulously. Then realization dawned upon her. "Oh, that's right! Qian Jin mentioned that before…"
"It doesn't really matter to me," the assassin sneered. "All who get in my way…will die!"
He then lunged forward, only for black arrows to streak across the courtyard and smash into him. He grunted as he blocked the arrows, but unlike the royal guard, he didn't get hurled back or blasted to oblivion. As expected of a Saint Realm cultivator, he was strong.
Even though the difference between us was not that much – I was peak Innate Realm while he appeared to be only at the first level of Saint Realm – the gap between two major realms was still not something that could be underestimated.
I let loose another volley of arrows to slow the assassin down, but he still managed to close in on me, his sword swinging down. I sank into the shadows, but he bounced from the spot to hurl himself toward the shadow I emerged from, having relied on his keener qi sense to predict where I would exit. Fortunately, I was prepared, having drawn my katana to block his blow.
"An archer trying to be a swordsman?" The assassin mocked me, swinging his sword and knocking me back. I parried his next blow and deflected a killing strike before trying to retaliate with a riposte, but he easily blocked it. The assassin snorted and slashed at me with incredible force, causing me to skid backward a few paces.
"Just a mere Innate Realm cultivator trying fight me, a Saint Realm cultivator? Are you deluded?" The assassin laughed and struck once more. I deflected a lethal blow and ducked under his next swing, but he kicked me. Already wise to such attacks – having employed such tactics myself frequently – I blocked his foot with my knee.
"There is no rule that says an Innate Realm cultivator can't win against a Saint Realm cultivator," I replied. The assassin threw his head back and laughed before swinging about to strike me. I managed to just barely parry his next strike, but his superior strength flung me back a few steps.
"It's common knowledge that the cultivator with a higher realm is stronger!"
"You see, that's the problem with all of you advocates of absolute strength or the so-called 'strong eat the weak' rhetoric." I sighed heavily. "I'm not denying that a higher cultivation realm or more strength is a tremendous advantage, but strength isn't everything. Cultivation realms aren't everything. Intelligent people have developed ways to counter greater strength. Brute force isn't everything. It can always be misdirected or manipulated. Also…strategy plays a huge part in it."
"I'll teach you that in the face of absolute power, all tricks and strategies are meaningless!"
The assassin roared and leaped at me, but I was retreating. Drawing Hou Yi bow, I fired a few arrows that detonated violently against him, causing him to flail wildly and stumble back. But he wasn't down. Far from it.
Pausing, he placed a hand on his blade and narrowed his eyes.
"Kill, Spirit Slayer!"
There was a massive flash and the sword suddenly lengthened. It was so quick that I almost didn't see it coming. I barely parried the extended blade in time, my feet thrown off the ground as I was pushed back by the immense force.
Fortunately, I was hurled back in the direction of my room. Breathing heavily, I made use of my momentum to retreat.
The assassin continued to pursue me, though, swinging his extended sword. The blade snaked through the air like a living serpent, slicing walls and pillars. Guests screamed and shouted, rushing away, and I had to withdraw away from my room to prevent any collateral damage.
Damn, I didn't expect this. I wanted to lure the assassin to my room where I had set up a formation, but he was making things difficult for me. I guess I would need an alternative plan. Placing a hand on my katana, I infused it with qi.
"Darken, Abyssal Edge!"
"Hah! I'll show you that the difference between an Innate Realm cultivator's Man and Sword as one and a Saint Realm cultivator's Man and Sword as One is as huge as the gap between the heavens and the earth!"
The assassin swung his sword and smashed another portion of the inn. I twisted my body in midair and unleashed Shadow Sword Strike to blast the snaking blade away before it could cleave me in half. Then I landed on the ground and spun about to face my opponent.
He flicked his sword like a whip and sent it hurtling toward me, but I knocked it away with Abyssal Edge. The assassin narrowed his eyes and infused qi into his Spirit Slayer.
Within seconds, a gigantic white snake appeared to shroud his sword, hissing silently and ferociously before it lunged at me with its jaws wide open.