The assassins held their breaths as they saw Zoran's finger pointed directly at them in the midst of darkness and shadow cloaking their bodies. He shouldn't even be able to sense their existence, much less pinpoint their direct position.
They quickly moved out of position to try and confuse Zoran. He must have been lucky, they thought. There was no way he could see them; he must have bluffed.
Attacks from their Crescent Moon worked and pierced his body. Even though Zoran lied and told them that he purposefully let those attacks land on him, he would not be able to resist the poison coursing through his blood right now.
They waited, but there was no such evidence of internal corrosion on Zoran's behavior. He stood still and looked unaffected by the toxicity.
With the amount of poison they included in their attacks, Zoran should have died by now. But seconds later, he didn't even seem fazed at all. He didn't even sweat.
If that didn't work, then they just needed to increase the dosage. A violet Yi circle with symbols of the moon and still water conjured in front of their hands. The assassins created five more Crescent Moons in their arsenal in each hand.
They thought that they would eventually whittle down Zoran's health with these attacks, but they didn't seem to notice that Zoran's 'injuries' had already been repaired.
The wounds that the Crescent Moons cleaved on Zoran's back were none to be seen. It's as if their attacks were nullified. They would think this as absurd since that kind of regeneration was unheard of, even with healers and clerics that specified on recovery. It should have taken minutes if not hours to cure a wound like that—especially if it was laced with poison. At the very least, it should have left a scar.
They didn't know that Zoran's body was constantly supplied with Miasma, a substance even more corrosive than any poison they could ever come across. Any foreign substance that enters his body gets instantly destroyed by the rotting Miasma. Such weak poison never had a chance.
A volley of Crescent Moons rained on Zoran at all sides. Even if he tried his teleportation 'trick', the blades would hone in on him automatically. He had no escape, they thought.
But Zoran wasn't thinking about dodging. He took it head on—with his eyes closed. He let the blades graze his skin as his body moved rigidly from muscle memory alone. He didn't even need to use any other skills and simply moved as he remembered.
The shadows ridiculed Zoran for giving up.
He closed his eyes. He must be begging for death, they thought. But then they saw him do the impossible. The Crescent Moons seem to actively avoid Zoran as if they were just gliding in the air alongside him.
No, they were not avoiding him. The Crescent Moon artskill that they practiced only followed its pattern that they practiced for thousands of time. It was Zoran that avoided the blades at the smallest margins as if he knew where it would go. He did this with his eyes closed.
Then, when he was finally satisfied, Zoran clapped his hands and the Crescent Moons all fell out of orbit and clashed amongst each other, creating sparks all around the dark room.
Zoran looked at the shadow assassins and said, "practice is over. Time to end this."
———————-
Meanwhile, Eddie tapped his foot impatiently as he stared at the door that Zoran disappeared. The assassins should have welcomed him by now with a heaping serving of extra pain.
A minute had already passed, but the assassins hadn't reported back to him yet. They should have finished him off by now and confined him into the torture chamber. However, silence filled the room except the chattering of wealthy whales discussing the upcoming auction.
Zoran was already poisoned. They shouldn't have much trouble, but why does he have a bad feeling about this eerie silence from his shadow assassins?
"The whales are getting impatient. Where is the Silver Bleeding Diamond?" Bettor sneaked in to whisper in Eddie's ears.
Eddie looked at the door to the room. "The 'workers' are doing their job. I'll have it in a few minutes," he replied.
Bettor nodded and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "Good. Don't forget about the 'merchandise'. The client wants it alive. Don't get too excited and accidentally kill it, understand?"
"Don't worry," Eddie replied. Although he was not confident that he would be able to keep Zoran alive after the torture, he could simply give Bettor's client a new cultivator from the dark market. He couldn't wait until Zoran squealed in pain.
Eddie walked towards the door to inspect what happened. The shadows must have been slacking off, he thought. He could no longer sit still and wanted to see for himself what the shadows were doing. He already wanted to complain to the Hidden Moon Dynasty that the shadows they sent were not up to par with the money he paid them if they keep slacking off.
First, the shadows failed to capture Zoran and retrieve the Diamond from him. Then now, they spent too much time securing a poisoned Zoran who should have no strength in his limbs.
Eddie opened the door and closed it behind him. The first thing he noticed was the darkness enshrouding everything. He couldn't see anything.
Thankfully, there was one source of light that he saw in the corner of the room. It gave him solace that he could at least see something in this scary dark scene.
But the light was not from any candle or bulb. It was Zoran's bright white afterglow from the Tyrannical Miasma Strike in his fist. Eddie took a deep breath as he saw Zoran grabbing what seemed to be a black cloth.
No, it wasn't a cloth. It was the assassin he hired!
It was then that he realized that he was standing in a pool of blood. He traced the river of red liquid and saw a headless body right beside him. That was not all. There were bodies littered all over the floor, each with a fatal hole in their bodies. The gruesome sight made Eddie's blood go cold.
Immediately, he sprinted away towards the door. He didn't know what happened. The thought of Zoran being the culprit of this massacre hasn't even formed in his mind yet. He only ran because his mortal fear of death made his body act on its own.
"Where are you going?" A cold voice called out to him, but Eddie ignored the voice of Death.
But then, a restraining force took hold of his neck and froze him from where he stood. Eddie couldn't breathe. His face turned as blood pooled in head. His signature top hat fell into the pool of blood below.
His body turned around on its own and faced the literal face of death in his nightmares, Zoran.