John felt a chill crawl up his spine. He had just made plans with Furi, plans that would allow him to navigate this new world with relative ease, and in the blink of an eye, those plans had been completely destroyed. The Half-Step Holy Manifestation cultivator had ensured that by ramming her sword completely through Furi.
Furi coughed violently, blood spewing out of his mouth. Despite his grave wounds, he was still alive. Despite his situation, he did not have fear or panic on his face. Instead, he stared daggers at the woman before him, as if he wanted nothing more than to claw her eyes out and rip out her innards. The woman smiled at his expression.
John's thoughts swirled chaotically, trying to figure out what to do. He was not nearly strong enough to help Furi, as he was surrounded by four Late World Expansion cultivators and one Half-Step Holy Manifestation cultivation. Just being nearby was already a grave risk, as if they searched the nearby area carefully, his spatial shroud would not hide him from them.
"Don't move, just listen," a voice sounded out in his mind, surprising John.
'Have I been detected?' he instinctively thought, but quickly realized who the source of the voice was.
It was Furi, sending him a sound transmission, a message that was undetectable by the others. John wondered for a brief moment if his location had been revealed, but quickly remembered the tracking disk Furi had given him. Through that disk, Furi had been able to pinpoint John's location while the others had no idea he was standing a dozen miles away, observing them in secret.
John wanted to send a message back, but decided against it. Furi's cultivation was strong enough to shroud his sound transmissions from the others, but John could not say the same. His sound transmission would not be able to be intercepted by the others, but its existence would be detected, thus revealing his location.
His eyes scanned over the surrounding area, looking for signs of the two siblings.
"Luri and Suri perished in the explosion," Furi sent another message to him. His voice was filled with grief and regret. John's eyes went wide at the news, and anger started to bubble within him. He had not known the youths for long, but they had left a good impression on him.
He quickly quashed his growing anger. If he lost control of his emotions, his bloodlust would alert the others to his location. He needed to be as calm and neutral as possible to remain shrouded.
"You owe me nothing, but if you can, please seek vengeance for my children," Furi said. "If nothing else, relay what you hear today to the Yang Dao Sect."
After that, no more messages were sent to John. He remained silent, watching from a distance as Furi shifted his attention back to the woman in front of him.
"Why?" he asked her.
"Why?" she repeated, an amused look on her face. "Isn't the answer always the same? This move is to secure more power in the future for myself and those around me."
"How could killing me and my children secure you more power?" Furi asked, coughing up another mouthful of blood.
"Your children? No, they were completely useless to us, other than being bait to lure you out into the middle of nowhere," the woman said smiling.
'So the kidnapping of those two was far more complicated than I had initially thought,' John thought, stunned by this reveal. It had been assumed that it was just slavers taking advantage of a situation to make money, but the truth was entirely different.
"Those slavers almost messed up our plan, the useless bastards," the woman spat out in disgust. "How did you manage to detect your children's locations before they reached the rendezvous point? They were binded with Onyxium shackles. Their Qi was suppressed, and the cage was lined with an information restriction formation. So how did you do it, hmm?"
Furi remained silent, staring daggers at the woman.
The woman stared at him curiously for a moment and then shrugged.
"Oh well, their failure complicated our plans a bit, but we still managed to make them work out in the end."
"Why?" Furi asked again, voice becoming hoarse. "Why target me? How does my death benefit you? Are you working for the Devils?"
"The Devils?" the woman smiled. "I'm afraid I cannot say who I am working for, even if you are about to perish. As for your death…"
The woman withdrew her sword, and two of the men moved forward, each grabbing one of Furi's arms, holding him in place to prevent escape. She flicked her sword clean of his blood and then sheathed it.
"As for targeting you, your Light Dao sect might be a pitiable Third Tier sect, but the healers you produce are some of the best the Yang Dao faction produces," she said, moving closer to him. "In fact, your healers are becoming quite a nuisance on the Continent of War, to the point that an assassination mission was created specifically for you. Killing you won't destroy the Light Dao Sect, but it will greatly hinder its ability to produce quality healers for generations until someone of your caliber arises to lead the sect."
She studied Furi's face for a moment, then moved away slightly.
"As for why we took action now? Your cultivation is ready to move into the Half-Step Holy Manifestation Realm at a moment's notice, should the right opportunities arise. Assassinating you then would become much harder, and so the choice was made to carry out the assassination now. Does this satisfy your dying curiosity?" she asked, smiling at him.
Furi stared at her with furious hatred, but was unable to do anything to her. He bowed his head a moment later, indicating he was ready for the final blow. The woman nodded to the men holding Furi down, who quickly finished the job she had started.
Just like that, a powerful Late World Expansion cultivator had been killed. John watched on with a grave expression, realizing he had gotten himself mixed up in something quite dangerous. He remained perfectly silent, withdrawing his presence as much as possible.
"What about the other one?" one of the men asked the woman, who was seemingly about to leave.
"The Dao Transformation boy?" she asked, to which the man nodded. "No Dao Transformation cultivator could have survived that explosion. He'd be lucky if anything remains of his corpse at all. Let's go."
The others nodded, their figures vanishing over the horizon a moment later, leaving the smoldering ruins of a battlefield behind; a battlefield that had now turned into a graveyard for the Light Dao Sect.
