I decided to get in by opening the front door and beheading the two soldiers who were behind said door. Due to my spacial mapping ability, I knew where the soldiers were situated, and I also had a decent idea of the buildings structure. Since the building was rather complex, my 'vision' was occasionally a bit fuzzy.
If I focused in on a certain area, I wouldn't have any such issues, but if I tried to look too far in any direction, my spacial mapping wasn't very map-like at all, more like a muddled maze. I was looking for a treasury, they were usually somewhere downstairs or perhaps hidden in some sort of secret passageway. According to the novel, many countries had two treasuries, one in plain sight and one hidden away.
Brittannia was one such country. I erased my presence completely and silently treaded towards the library. In the original story, some soldier ended up in the library and pressed on a certain book by mistake which opened up the gateway to the true treasury. He went down to the treasury and attempted to access the same Artifact I'm after.
The Artifact of the first group of assassins in recorded history. A group so intertwined with assassination that the word assassin was derived from them. The Artifact of Hassan-I-Sabbah. Its ability was to summon the assassins from that group and have them serve you assuming you had an aptitude with the relic.
If you didn't have enough aptitude with it, it'd devour your mind, body, and soul, leaving nothing left of you.
Once I had arrived at the library, I climbed up the stairs whilst using Demon's Breath, and tapped on every single book in the library as fast as I could without making a sound. But nothing happened. I sighed, if I wanted to, I could wipe this castle off the map, perhaps even this city if I put my mind to it, but that wouldn't really accomplish much, considering how many people in this city would be able to withstand such attacks. And on top of that, I'd release an insane amount of Mana pulsations and just reveal my location, that's because my Cursed Energy certainly couldn't produce a city wiping attack just yet.
After a while of searching, I just seriously could not be bothered, this country was about to go to hell either way. I increased my strength with Mana and Demon's Breath and simply blew a hole into every wall until I found the right one. When I did, I ran down the hallway.
The hall had pictures of what I assumed were the previous leaders of Britannia. At the end of the hallway, there was a pair of large, thick metal doors. The doors seemed to be made of a magic resistant material, so I used my sword in conjunction with Demon's Breath to slice through it.
'I probably have around five minutes to get what I need and run, Brittanian forces are spread out thinly due to the number that have been sent to deal with Tenebris' army. And considering the circumstances, I'm sure a Saint has been deployed. So I doubt they'll spare too many forces on the lower parts of the castle. So like I said, that should give me around five minutes to do some thievery.'
Inside the treasury, there were plenty of magic items, artifacts and whatnot. But I didn't have time to copy any of them, I went to the back of the room where a blavk levitating orb was bound with several layers of Antimagic chains. They had completely sealed the Artifact's power and presence.
Artifacts were sort of like Runes, but they were usually items left behind by beings from ages long past. For example, the Artifact infront of me was the Artifact of Hassan-I-Sabbah. The Artifact contained the power of each and every single one of his followers. They were called the Hashshashin, and were the first group of assassins in recorded history.
They were so intertwined with assassination that the word assassin was derived from their name, in terms of assassination I don't think any being in this world born now, in the past, or in the future could surpass them.
I looked at the Artifact and sighed, the only way to properly bind this Artifact to your soul and put it to use was to swallow it and let it fuse with your body. The soldier who somehow accidentally ended up swallowing it couldn't handle it due to his lack of aptitude with the Artifact.
Artifact's have different ways of measuring aptitude, this Artifact measured a person's aptitude based on a person's association with the concept of death. So, obviously enough, there would never be a better host for this Artifact aside from I, The Reaper.
I quickly swallowed the Artifact and almost puked, it tasted far worse than even the flesh of a rotten human. Which I have in fact had the displeasure of tasting, it was a 1/10. Kids, please don't ever eat the rotten flesh of anything unless you're going to gain supernatural powers or godlike strength from it. Even then, salt it or something. On second thought add smoked paprika, much tastier.
(E/N: I wonder if a still beating snake's heart would taste worse…)
I felt an energy of sorts slowly spread throughout out my body and slowly bind to it. My Magical Attributes seemed to also have a rather high aptitude with this Artifact, probably due to my Dark Attribute. Ordinarily an Artifact should only bind to your soul, but for me, it was binding to my body and even my Mana Core and Demonic Seed.
My body began to become even stronger, my Mana and Cursed Energy capacity increased, it wasn't a huge increase, but any increase was a welcome increase. This Artifact worked rather well for Demon Bloods, that was because Demon's and The Devil himself are often blamed for inexplicable or intensely gruesome deaths. This merely furthered my association with the concept of death and just increased my already monstrous aptitude with this Artifact.
"This Artifact isn't all I came for though, I think it's about fucking time I stopped being blind."
Edited By: WorthyAdversary