Tricked

The fight lasted for quite a while, neither of the two making any big moves for fear of Minos or one of the other pursuers taking advantage of their weakness.

Eventually the disciple behind the maid got irritated, and decided to end the battle in a single move. He pulled back and steadied himself as he prepared his strongest attack.

Seeing this, the first figure's face couldn't help but slightly drop. He could avoid the attack, but that would be akin to giving up on the bracelet, but if he returned it, he may be severely injured.

"Damn it, since you want to play, let's play!" The figure shouted, as he also released his strongest move.

The two both rocketed towards each other, their swords flashing through the air like comets through the sky, before hitting in an ear-splitting collision.

The two began sweating heavily as they pushed back and forth with their blades, but eventually the disciple behind the maid won out, forcing the first figure's blade out of his hand before landing a devastating wound on his body.

The first figure clutched the wound for a moment as he attempted to say something, but the blood blocked his throat. Without even having a chance to say his final words, he collapsed, his lifeless body hitting the floor.

At this point, the disciple behind the maid was completely exhausted, but as took the bracelet into his hands, he couldn't help but feel his exhaustion disappearing as excitement replaced it.

Seeing the results of the battle, Minos finally walked up, clearing his throat as a reminder to the disciple that he was still here.

"Ahaha, so what if you're here! Now that I have this, I can easily kill you even if I'm tired." The disciple said as he latched the bracelet onto his wrist, attempting to activate it.

The bracelet naturally didn't do anything, causing the disciple to scratch his head as he tinkered with the bracelet, trying to trigger it.

"Ahh blood, must be blood!" The disciple said as he bit into his thumb, rubbing the blood onto the bracelet.

But again, nothing happened, and at this point the figure couldn't help but begin sweating profusely as Minos got closer and closer.

"Tell me you bastard, how does this thing work? I know it's your treasure!" The disciple shouted as he crawled backwards and away from Minos, who was slowly walking towards him.

"The maid must have told you, probably something about me never wearing it before, meaning it must be a treasure. What a story." Minos said with a laugh as he stepped nearer.

"What are you saying you bastard, how did you know about that? It's that maid! She must have told you!" The disciple shouted as fear began to consume him.

"Of course not, how could she tell me something like that? After all, for her to be willing to betray me must mean you have something pretty important to her." Minos responded.

"But then, how, how did you know!" The disciple shouted, anger beginning to replace fear.

"Just a guess, but regardless, I've got to thank you. It would have been pretty hard to get out of this situation without you fighting on my behalf."

"With all these corpses, no one should mess with me for a while, talk about two birds with one stone." Minos said with a smile.

"Well since you've served your purpose, you can go to hell now." Minos said, as he pulled his Heaven-Sundering Sword from its sheath, severing the disciples head in a single slash.

"Wa-" The disciple shouted, but before he could finish his words, Minos's sword cut through his neck, sending his head flying into the air.

Shooting his hand out, Minos grabbed the head by its hair, before sheathing his sword and pulling the mask off its face.

'The Sixth Son of the Sword, Teemo, huh? Guess it makes sense for it to be him. Based on Merth's memories, he's always been a snake-like character.' Minos thought, as he tucked the head into his spatial ring.

The fun wasn't over quite yet however, in fact it was just starting. It was time to search the corpses, which was always Minos's favorite part.

Naturally he started with Teemo, and after looking around for a bit, he found three small bags tied in random spots across Teemo's body.

The first two bags were filled with Nux Stones, adding up to two dozen of them, which was quite a lot for a cultivator without an auxiliary occupation.

The third bag was filled with an assortment of unknown pills, but based on the little Minos knew about alchemy, he guessed they were probably poisonous, not meant to help with cultivation.

After clearing Teemo, Minos headed to the other two, once again finding Nux Stones on both, adding up to another thirty or so.

Finally, as Minos checked the final spot on the last corpse, he found a small book, titled 'Moon Tempest Sword,' which was a Three-Moon grade technique.

This could be considered the highlight of his harvest, and would save him a full thousand contribution points since he wouldn't have to buy it from the sect.

After securing everything in his spatial ring, Minos quickly cleaned his body up, removing the scent of blood, before disappearing into the woods.

He didn't plan on leaving just yet however, after all, those who came after him would never be allowed to leave so easily.

Using his memory and sense of smell, Minos began tracking down those weaker pursuers who had run after the jewelry.

Luckily for Minos, these figures were still fighting over the random jewelry Minos had left behind, letting him track them down quite easily.

Given his cultivation at the late stages of Mortal Renewal, not to mention his Heaven-Sundering Sword, Minos began cutting through these cultivators like a hot knife through butter.

Minos had previously memorized how many people had come after him, so after each kill, he would reduce the counter by one.

'9'

'8'

Screams began echoing through the forest as Minos traveled through claiming lives like the grim-reaper, but no matter how they shouted or screamed, Minos would find them, and cut them down.

…

'0'

Just like that, there was no one left, only Minos standing in the eerie silence of the dead forest as he wiped the blood from his sword.

With all the pursuers dead, Minos could finally complete his mission in comfort. Again, he found his target, and with a little clever maneuvering plus his Heaven-Sundering Sword, he once again completed a mission beyond his level.

With the mission out of the way, Minos could focus on his real goal, training his puppet maneuvering skills.

Riding through the woods, he soon found a large and empty stretch of land, a perfect place to train.

Minos didn't have any puppets at the moment, but that was fine, since there were other ways to train.

Finding a small rock, Minos tied his specially made puppet-string around it, before tying the other end around his right index finger.

Following the guide on the Thousand Tempest Puppet Storm technique, Minos began flexing his index finger in an attempt to control the rock.

Naturally he failed at first, only causing the rock to flail around aimlessly as the puppet-string pulled on it with no control.

Failure begets success however, and Minos always followed this mantra, so after failing time and time again to properly manipulate the rock, he slowly began to get a handle on things.

His skill rapidly advanced as the hours passed, going from having no control, to being able to manipulate the rock however he liked.

But at the end of the day, a rock was a rock, lacking the incredible flexibility of an actual puppet, so to up the difficulty, Minos pulled out another string, beginning to manipulate two rocks at the same time.

For a normal puppet-master, adding an extra rock would exponentially increase the difficulty, requiring one to master the ability to multitask.

However for Minos who had the Soul Rune Ascension technique, he didn't have this problem, instead just giving each of his split souls a string to control.

At the moment he had three split souls, plus his original soul, meaning he could control four strings at the same time with no problem.

Deciding not to waste time, Minos quickly skipped forward, directly manipulating four strings at once.

As expected, with the benefit of split souls, the difficulty didn't actually increase at all, and Minos could manipulate all four with no problem. He began twisting and turning them with ease, allowing each one to dance to its own rhythm.

The Soul Rune Ascension technique seemed to meld perfectly with the puppet-master occupation, which was one that innately required incredible control skills.

If a normal puppet-master was like a general controlling his soldiers, then with the Soul Rune Ascension technique, Minos could become each one of his warriors, fighting directly on the front line.

Feeling comfortable with four, Minos tossed another rock in, now utilizing all the fingers on his right hand.

With no more split souls to spare for this fifth string, the difficulty finally advanced, Minos once again appreciating the true challenge of being a puppet-master.