The Price of Victory

As Shui rushed towards him, the assassin used 'Blade Rain'. As an assassin, most of the techniques he learnt were arts for the sake of concealment so he had few spells to use in open combat. However, even though it had been useless last time, 'Blade Rain' was still his strongest spell, and now that he was prepared for Cin's roar, he believed that it could kill Shui.

'Within expectations.'

When Shui saw the assassin use 'Blade Rain', and even when all the blades were positioned above him, he wasn't frightened. Getting targeted by a lethal attack was part of the plan. Furthermore, he believed he could maximize the effect of his plan against this spell. As the red blades shot at him, Shui took out the last three 'Protect' talismans he had, layered them and used them to block the blades while running. He hadn't mastered triple-layering but under the pressure of the situation he succeeded. As Shui used the talismans like an umbrella, the assassin smirked while controlling his spell. Even if Shui somehow made it through this spell, he would only need to cast the same 'Swift Viper' spell he used before and this battle would be over.

When the barrier created by the layered 'Protect' talismans shattered, Shui had just made it out of 'Blade Rain'. Though the barrier would be enough to take the attack of someone in the early Earth Realm, that was just a single attack, and likely a casual one at that. There was a limit to the amount of damage it could take, so it didn't hold up as long as the attack was below that limit but rather until the accumulation of attacks was at the limit.

The moment Shui was out of 'Blade Rain', the assassin who had prepared in advance, cast 'Swift Viper' twice.

"Now!"

"Rawr!"

Right as the two green serpents were about to crash into Shui, a roar caused them to freeze for a instant.

'Haste.'

During this time, Shui drew the symbol for 'Haste' mentally and seemed to cross the three cales of distance between him and the assassin in an instant. Shui was so used to drawing this symbol that it was one of the few he could draw two of simultaneously in his mind. Naturally, drawing two of the same symbol simultaneously was much harder than drawing the same symbol twice so he could only do this for basic inscriptions. However, the first time he tested the backlash of a double layering of 'Haste' mentally, his body was in so much pain that he fainted for three hours, so he didn't dare risk it in this situation.

When Shui suddenly appeared in front of him, the assassin had no time to raise a barrier so the attack hit him directly. Shui used almost all of the nature energy inside him to activate his artifacts. Most special-rank artifacts only increased the strength or speed of attacks while burning through the wielder's nature energy, but some had special effects like Shui's harmony series and the swords in his hands.

"Cross Slash!"

Shui swung his swords to form an 'X' on the assassin's chest. His full strength wouldn't give him enough confidence to kill him, but the special ability of the swords took his nature energy to form a spell that mimicked sword intent, the sign of gaining the acknowledgement of the Sword Path. The 'X' that should have only been traced in the air became a 'X' shaped light that sent the assassin flying to the forest behind him, before finally being stopped by the collision of his back and a sturdy tree.

There was no way for him to scream due to the blood that constantly poured from his mouth. He wasn't dead yet; the special-rank armour he had prevented that. But the armour was dented and he wouldn't be able to live long with this injury. After puking blood for about a minute, the assassin dragged himself to his feet and tried to escape into the forest.

"Oh no you don't!"

Shui was sure the assassin would die soon based on the amount of blood he lost, but because of the small possibility that he might survive and come back for him when he was exhausted, Shui was determined to finish him off. He took one step towards the assassin but stumbled because of the backlash of using 'Haste', which was thankfully less than if he used a 'Haste' talisman. Unlike when he used a talisman, the effects of symbols he drew mentally only lasted for as long as he focused on the symbol so the backlash came as soon as he stopped focusing on 'Haste'. He didn't want to use a talisman before dashing towards the assassin since he wanted to catch him off guard, and in his current state he might die if used a 'Haste' talisman and took the full backlash.

'Tch, I don't want to resort to this but there's no choice.'

Shui threw one of his swords at the assassin's departing figure but it was deflected by a barrier. Even so, the assassin still paused his steps briefly. Using this time, Shui drew 'Haste' mentally once more, quickly reached behind the assassin and jumped so his sword could reach his neck. He thought for sure that he would take off his head with a single swing but suddenly, the assassin turned around and stabbed him in his gut with a dagger while his sword was stuck in his collarbone instead of through his neck. When he saw the crazed look in the assassin's eyes, Shui knew.

'It was a trap!'

He now knew that the assassin had shown off how weak he was and pretended to escape so he would be baited to attack him and get dragged into the afterlife with the assassin, but it was too late.

"Gu-! You!"

Shui clung to the arm that held the dagger with his legs and grabbed the assassin's head with his free right hand.

'Burst.'

The assassin's head exploded, spilling pink and red gore in the vicinity, and Shui dropped to the ground along with his body. Shui dragged his body and rested his back against a tree while sitting. He then ripped out the dagger and placed a 'Stasis' talisman on the affected area. Most would say this couldn't get any worse, but when Shui checked inside his body, he found out that the situation was more dire than he expected.

'It's poison!'

He was wary of the dagger since the assassin hadn't activated them, but he didn't expect it to be poison. His cloak had prevented it from reaching too deep, but the wound was big enough for the poison to begin ravaging his body. It not only destroyed the mutated veins in his body, it was also corroding his muscles. When someone started cultivating, the nature energy in their body would mutate their blood vessels to form veins for the sole purpose of circulating nature energy. Without these mutated veins, even if he continued absorbing nature energy, most of it would escape from his body, basically crippling his cultivation. Furthermore, his corroded muscles weren't something that could be treated easily even with his transcendent force. If he reached four-star saint body then it wouldn't matter, but in his state he would weaken until the corrosion reached his heart and killed him.

Thankfully, the 'Stasis' talisman slowed down the progress of the poison, but it couldn't stop it. As Shui used his martial intent to force the poison back into the wounded area it came from, Cin ran up to him.

"Little bro, what's wrong?!"

"I've been poisoned. I need to focus so please protect me until the mist wall goes away."

"Got it. Don't die on me!"

In order to concentrate the poison, he would need to recover his nature energy so Shui took out the bag of spirit gems he had. When Shui finally got the poison that was in his body back in one place, he slapped two 'Stasis' talismans to the area and the effect of layering these two and the first one managed to stabilize the situation. By this time, there were only a few minutes left until help hopefully arrived. Shui returned the spirit gems that were left to his satchel and used his martial intent to snatch the knapsacks of the assassins, including the one from the Tower of Killers. He hadn't taken the knapsacks of the other three he killed since he didn't think they would have anything important, but since he had been put into such a state by these bastards, he had to make sure he took whatever benefits he could get from them. After gathering the knapsacks, which came with space expansion, Shui called Cin.

"Cin, hide in my satchel for now."

"Huh? But..."

"Help's coming. You don't want the trouble of having to explain anything do you?"

"...Fine. You won't leave without me, right?"

The rare expression of timidity caused a smile to appear on Shui's pale face and he patted Cin's furry head.

"No, I won't."

Cin looked at him once more before entering the satchel. Right after dealing with the poison, Shui took out a 'Seal' talisman and now he placed it on the satchel just in case. After using it, he deliberately weakened the seal so that it would come off in a few months instead of the couple years it normally would. After all, he couldn't be sure that the help that arrived would be for him.

Although it would be obvious to the ones behind the assassins, Shui took up his swords and left the area so he could throw away the accomplishment of killing them. With his body's condition, he only made it a couple tens of cales away from his previous spot before dropping to the ground. Would help actually come? He didn't know, but there was nothing else he could do.