Volume 3

Chapter 35 : His Shadow

The Tier 5 Transcenders of the entire continent were actually distributed barely evenly.

Among these hundred or so top powerhouses, most formed groups of ten or so, such as the seven grandmasters of the Alchemical Association, the Supreme Nine Seats of the Ether Academy, the eleven commanders of the Revolutionary Army, the thirteen Grand Dukes of the Empire……

And in the West Kingdom, apart from the four Grand Dukes, there were also eight Tier 5 adventurers.

Among these eight people, seven were listed in the Zero Point Explorers Association, jointly establishing this organization that controlled all adventurer guilds.

And [Death Knell] Hubert York, as the president of the [Executioner] Guild, a Tier 5 adventurer whose fierce reputation made people tremble with fear upon hearing it, was naturally one of them.

From his appearance, York was a plain-looking young man.

He wore a brown scarf, but his upper body only wore a black vest.

Two daggers were pinned to his waist, and his lower body wore ordinary long trousers and boots.

Based solely on appearance, he gave off a full feeling of a small fry, like an adventurer making up the numbers in the selection match.

But his battle record was quite terrifying.

Among the spoils of war of this [Executioner] leader, there was the skeleton of a Tier 5 giant dragon, and the head of a Tier 5 Transcender.

As the vertex of commission-type adventurer guilds, Death Knell York did not excavate any earth-shattering secret treasures; this battle record was his signboard.

As long as the remuneration was in place, he could even go hack a Tier 5 Transcender.

If it was a bit more in place, even if the target was a Grand Duke, he might dare to go up and try.

At this moment, Mr. Death Knell was leaning back on the sofa, tossing a dark gold curved dagger.

And opposite him was precisely the legendary adventurer Faust, whose momentum had swept through the West Kingdom in recent days.

“So, that is the matter.”

Although Death Knell had the appearance of a young man, his voice was low and hoarse.

Holding the hilt of the blade, his elbows pressed on his legs, his body leaned forward slightly, and he looked expressionlessly at the black-haired young man before him:

“Your people, out of personal behavior, played these good-for-nothing idiots under my hand. Not smart enough, not vigilant enough, that is their problem……”

“Did you think I would say that?”

This gunpowder-filled statement made Swordfish, standing behind the sofa, have his eyelids twitch.

He quietly glanced at Faust, but the other party seemed indifferent to this.

Death Knell tossed a ring onto the table between the two: “Inside here, there is an equivalent of twice the intelligence fee received by those thirty-nine people. Considering that the intelligence merchant might also be your person, I did not bring his head.”

“Listening to your tone.”

Faust clenched one hand into a fist, resting it against the side of his face, and said casually, “This does not sound like the meaning of ending it here.”

Death Knell nodded slightly, his expression calm: “I am not clear if that little girl under you doing this was truly under your instruction. If it was, this matter naturally cannot be settled like this; if it was not, then it is even more impossible.”

He casually tossed the dagger.

The sharp curved short dagger spun rapidly in mid-air, then accurately nailed into the hole of the ring.

“In our line of work, business is linked to face. Although that little girl under your hand is just a mortal, her brain is considered quick-witted to be able to create this kind of thing.”

The man’s body leaned forward a bit more.

He held the knife hilt; that so-called “compensation” was right under his knife.

“And if she can use this kind of small matter to threaten my people once, she would dare to use ‘[Executioner] was played around in circles by a mortal girl’ to threaten a second time.”

“I hate this kind of trouble, Faust.” Death Knell said, “I also may not necessarily be able to control my subordinates from getting a rush of blood to the brain and casually killing a mortal who is no different from a bug. So——”

“You give that little thing who does not know death or life to me.”

Death Knell’s thumb clasped on the knife hilt, and he said indifferently: “This compensation that a thousand of her also cannot exchange for, I give to you.”

At this moment, Mingfuluo did not simply hide as usual.

She gathered all Nidhoggs into the main body worn on Anselm’s wrist.

Although her figure was not visible, observation and thinking were not problems.

So this answer from Death Knell gave Mingfuluo somewhat of a headache.

Anselm’s killing nature had never been heavy, but when he was playing Faust…… he seemed to never be stingy with using violence.

The Mingfuluo of the Imperial Capital period thought she could keep up with Anselm’s train of thought in schemes and intrigues, which was nothing more than the push of fate. The current Miss Scholar had a clear self-cognition——in this aspect, no matter how she played, she could not outplay Anselm.

So even if Anselm told her that the image of Faust was completely within Anselm’s single thought, she could not speculate on what kind of Faust Anselm would play in the next second.

It should…… not go as far as a big fight, right?

Speaking of which, Marina created such a scene, what was it for again?

I stay by Anselm’s side every day and have not seen him give this kind of instruction, but if it was without Anselm’s instruction…… What is Marina’s purpose in doing this kind of thing?

Anselm, who was resting his cheek on his hand, did not know that his friend was thinking wildly at this moment.

He just stared at Death Knell for a few seconds, then continued to speak in a lazy voice that was almost completely indifferent:

“Why would a master-level assassin of the Order of Time fall to becoming a hyena running around everywhere?”

Once these words came out, Swordfish’s expression behind Death Knell changed drastically. Even Death Knell, who was the first to speak to Faust on equal terms and even made a threatening gesture, had his face instantly stiffen.

“You……”

In the instant he lowered his eyes and lightly spat out this one word, the index finger and middle finger of his other hand came together, instantly stabbing straight towards Anselm’s glabella.

At this moment when time seemed to freeze, another phantom emerged from his body, taking out the two daggers at his waist and holding them in both hands, one slashing towards Anselm’s neck, one stabbing towards Anselm’s heart.

([Time-Rending Blade]), with unparalleled attainment in time elements, a terrifying technique that launched attacks simultaneously from the past that had already happened and the frozen present——this was the unresolvable ultimate kill created by Death Knell when he achieved Tier 5 in the Order of Time and obtained the title of Master.

If the understanding of the time element was not deep enough, it was absolutely impossible to detect that slash coming from the “past”.

And the frozen present was formed by the triple superposition of local time stagnation, one’s own time acceleration, and the opponent’s time retardation.

It was operating the time element in three different ways in an instant.

Death Knell had not used this move for a long time.

Obviously, Faust, who pierced through his secret with one sentence, brought him a great sense of danger.

And just in the instant when the current him and the past him were about to stab Anselm with finger blades and twin daggers, the legendary adventurer, who was supporting his side face with one hand and seemed to have been completely static in this space-time, moved his lips under Death Knell’s terrified gaze.

“Boring.”

That indifferent voice entered his ears before Death Knell was about to pierce Faust’s head and heart.

——No, it was even earlier, before he spoke!

When Death Knell reacted to this point, the hands of the phantom floating up from his body were suddenly twisted into a burst of blood mist.

Afterwards, his current hands also instantly and silently turned into a blood-red gas-solid mixture drifting in the air.

When the static time flowed again, nothing…… happened.

Only Death Knell no longer maintained that tough threatening posture, but leaned back on the sofa in silence, staring fixedly at Anselm’s eyes.

“You are…… the real goods.”

In the unsettling silence, the man slowly spoke this sentence with a low and hoarse voice.

Death Knell had just reversed his injuries in the frozen time, so he looked unharmed after the time stop was lifted.

But he was very clear that the Faust just now…… in a time earlier than the time he split, without him noticing at all, shattered his hands!

This was absolutely…… absolutely impossible to be a fake.

He was the genuine Faust!

And at the moment when both Swordfish and Mingfuluo were slightly stunned by this sentence, Anselm, who hadn’t even changed his posture, said words that made the three people, including Death Knell, even more bewildered:

“This intelligence, who do you plan to sell it to?”

“……”

Death Knell’s fingers trembled slightly.

His gaze staring at Anselm gradually changed from dread and coldness to complexity and concession.

“Truly a dangerous fellow.”

The man said so, pulling out the dagger that pinned the ring, and repeated again: “You are the real Faust.”

“I never said I was a fake.”

“But actually quite a few people think you are a fake; the reasons are many.”

The dark gold dagger turned into a stream of light and imprinted on Death Knell’s palm.

He put away the initial aggressive and cold posture.

Although it still couldn’t be counted as having a good expression, it could barely be called gentle: “A ‘powerhouse’ who suddenly pops up at this time period and calls himself Faust is hard not to make people’s thoughts run wild.”

“So when you heard that news coming from your vice president, you felt it was an opportunity.”

Anselm said with a casual tone: “An opportunity to test my depth, an opportunity to do a business deal.”

“Compared to those little things your subordinates sell…… key intelligence from the President of the [Executioner] acting personally is obviously of more value.”

After listening to Anselm’s words, Swordfish looked at his boss dumbstruck.

No, boss, we agreed on helping us solve the trouble.

How come it turns out you also want to scoop up a profit yourself!

And Death Knell responded with a complicated tone: “I indeed saw…… something more valuable.”

He pushed the ring on the table in front of Anselm.

This time, it could be counted as truly expressing the sincerity of concession.

“But thinking about it, you will not let me sell it out so easily.”

“No, you can.”

The young Hydra slightly raised his chin, looking at the other party with a condescending attitude: “This business, you can do.”

He finally changed from that lazy appearance, crossed his legs, interlaced his ten fingers on his knees, like an examiner, a dominator.

“But what the ‘me’ in your mouth is like, and who your transaction object is, will be decided by me.”

“……”

Death Knell fell silent again.

He rubbed the dagger for a long time, then slowly shook his head.

“Faust.” The man said seriously, “In our line of work, face concerns business, and integrity decides business. I cannot provide false intelligence to my commissioners because of you.”

Anselm did not respond to this sentence directly, but opened a very baffling topic.

“Ocalian.”

“……What?”

“Ocalian Pernand. The assassin with the most rapid growth speed in the history of the Order of Time. Third-tier Throne, and by now he has already touched the threshold of the Tier 5 Crown, using only about half a year’s time.”

Anselm looked at the gradually losing control of emotions in Death Knell’s pupils and said indifferently: “Do you know him?”

Death Knell of course knew this person.

Fifteen years ago, he was already a Tier 5 Transcender.

Because his philosophy did not accord with the creed of the Order of Time, he defected and came to the West Kingdom, establishing [Executioner].

During these fifteen years, powerhouses from the Order of Time came one after another to assassinate him, but all returned without success.

——One month ago, that idiot who called himself the most powerful genius in the history of the Order of Time, Ocalian Pernand, came to assassinate him with Tier 4 strength without knowing death or life, but inconceivably retreated completely unscathed.

Death Knell paid attention to this young man and found that his growth trajectory was also somewhat inconceivable.

About half a year ago, Ocalian could only be counted as a normal genius.

Although his promotion speed was fast and his ability was strong, he was still within a normal range at any rate.

But right after he returned from an ordinary mission in the North Lands, his strength and talent grew frantically at an inconceivable speed.

In this short half a year, he had already charged from the late stage of Tier 3 to the final stage of Tier 4.

Faust…… why would he suddenly ask this question?

“Death Knell, you abandoned the Order of Time because you did not approve of their way of pursuing killing power, believing that their path of increasing strength solely through pure assassination was too narrow, so you came to the West Kingdom to found [Executioner].”

Faust, looking down at Death Knell, seemed to slowly change into another appearance, shedding some perfect disguise and revealing his truest original form.

The original form of a devil.

Death Knell’s pupils reflecting Faust’s figure began to tremble.

“You accept commissions, resorting to every conceivable means to exchange for all resources, using this more direct and efficient way to improve your own strength. But even if you did not hesitate to fall into the abyss, you still cannot find the possibility of going a step further.”

The devil’s voice echoed in his ears: “So this does not mean you are a fallen one who has lost motivation. You still have an incredibly strong persistence and thirst for killing power and strength.”

“So, are you not curious about exactly what allowed Ocalian to possess that kind of talent, and if that mysterious blessing could descend upon you……”

That whisper seeming to come from the void shocked Death Knell’s soul.

“Is it possible that you might…… see a brand new scenery?”

Death Knell, who was just talking about integrity or something, stood up unsteadily.

He stared fixedly at Anselm, staring at those…… eyes rising with pitch-black colors.

Just like staring at a teacher who was preaching.

“……Inconceivable.”

After leaving the [Executioner] Guild, Mingfuluo said in a low voice: “So, you had already calculated it? Calculated to this extent?”

Distorted the Lapis Lazuli Grand Duke’s perception of Faust, but this was still not enough.

That cunning businessman would not easily make a complete characterization.

He would definitely try all other methods to test Faust’s depth, and the powerhouses who would think this way were definitely not limited to the Lapis Lazuli Grand Duke alone.

Under the push of fate, exactly when these probes would appear and in what form they would appear was completely an unknown number.

It was extremely difficult to control and extremely likely to cause accidents.

And Anselm utilized Death Knell, this Tier 5 Transcender at the very peak of the “commissioner” industry in the West Kingdom, using him as a medium to wantonly shape Faust’s image in the eyes of other powerhouses to the greatest extent.

One had to know that in the West Kingdom, counting the Grand Dukes, there were only twelve Tier 5 powerhouses in total.

And as the one among these twelve people who specialized in killing power and had cultivated in the West Kingdom for more than ten years, Death Knell was incredibly solid in both strength and prestige.

Leaving aside whether this Faust was real or fake, even if he was indeed the real goods, under the circumstance that both were Tier 5 Transcenders, even if Death Knell was not an opponent, who would think that this veteran powerhouse would willingly bow his head to Faust?

Are you kidding, he is Faust, not a Divine Species!

Who did you take him for?

The incarnation of the Dragon King walking in the human world?

The parasitic shell of the Callers of the Deep?

What, could it be that the young Hydra was idle and bored and ran to the West Kingdom to experience life?

No one would suspect the authenticity of Death Knell’s intelligence.

Even fate would not push this suspicion, because suspecting this kind of thing was unreasonable in itself.

At most, they would only suspect the reliability of this intelligence, rather than suspecting that Death Knell had already knelt at Faust’s feet and deliberately handed out false intelligence.

At this point, the cognition of the top-level Transcenders of the West Kingdom regarding Faust would be completely controlled by Anselm, and this was not even the start.

“You couldn’t have already made the plan before choosing Strife Fortress as a foothold, right?”

Mingfuluo said in disbelief: “Using the Selection Match to make a name, and using [Executioner] which established a branch here to fish out Death Knell, further manipulating the image of Faust in the eyes of others?”

“How can it be that exaggerated?” Anselm shook his head and smiled, “I already said, I am not making any big plans all day long.”

He shrugged slightly with some helplessness: “Look, don’t I even have any commissions to do now?”

“……You aren’t trying to tell me that these are all coincidences, right.”

Mingfuluo looked at Anselm with eyes looking at a fool, with an expression of ‘guess if I believe you’.

However, after a few seconds, she seemed to have realized something again,

“I am not the same as your puppy.” Miss Scholar sitting on Anselm’s shoulder gently touched his cheek, “I don’t mind you doing some conspiracy…… Moreover, since Death Knell accepts any commission, he definitely isn’t a good thing either.”

Mingfuluo’s care made Anselm pause slightly. Then he smiled and shook his head, gently rubbing against Mingfuluo’s soft body.

“How did you think of that? Do I look like the kind of person who would have a sense of guilt?”

“That’s not what I mean, it’s just……”

Mingfuluo looked at Anselm. After hesitating for a moment, she still rubbed the corner of his eye and said softly: “Under normal circumstances, after you complete this kind of calculation, you should be very happy, but I see you seem, seem a bit……”

Mingfuluo did not know how to describe it, but when the colors of the dark abyss rose in Anselm’s eyes, she could feel that Anselm seemed…… not to like using this power very much.

“Rest assured, I didn’t think that much. I indeed had a plan similar to what you described, but I didn’t think about implementing it right now. Even less did I think of using this method to hook Death Knell…… I have plenty of methods, but I haven’t really considered this kind of method.”

“Because just as you said, I think, I really quite like doing some commissions.”

The young Hydra said softly: “So this is indeed just a coinci…… no, to be more accurate, I acted according to the trend.”

“According…… to the trend?”

“Yes.”

Anselm tilted his head slightly, and said with quite some sighs and delight: “You said all of this was planned by me, then think about it, Aluo.”

“——The source event that let me and Death Knell meet, what was it?”

“Bad, bad bad bad! It’s bad Lina!”

Hitana crashed open the door extremely anxiously and shouted at Marina in the office: “Commissions…… commissions!”

“……Calm down, Miss Fenrir.”

Marina sighed and tidied up the documents, looking up at Hitana who rushed to her desk:

“Speak slowly, what happened?”

“Commissions!”

Miss Wolf waved her arms excitedly and said incoherently: “That [Executioner] or whatever, he isn’t accepting commissions! He isn’t accepting commoners’ commissions anymore!”

Marina tilted her head slightly: “So?”

“So?” The tall and slender girl widened her eyes, “No one is helping anymore! Last time we commissioned them to solve the gangsters in the Lower District, it was clearly so effective, and more and more people went to find them for help. As a result, they suddenly stopped accepting what to do!”

After Hitana finished shouting and hooting, Marina said very patiently:

“So, without their help, can the people of the Lower District do nothing by themselves?”

“Uh…… that’s not really the case, right.”

Hitana was obviously stumped by this question.

She scratched her head and thought for a long time, then answered somewhat unnaturally: “Having Transcenders help can save a lot of trouble. Lina, your initial proposal, the proposal to find Transcenders to deal with the Lower District gangsters, didn’t it also mean this?”

“Miss Fenrir.” Marina sighed, “Do you think the main point of that proposal of mine was ‘let all residents of the Lower District unite’, or ‘issue commissions at [Executioner]’?”

“……”

Hitana stared blankly at Marina, tried hard to think for a good while, and answered cautiously:

“Both…… are important?”

Marina knew she couldn’t reason with Hitana, so she started giving her examples, her tone still very patient.

“All commoners of the Lower District uniting…… this kind of thing, this kind of title, invisibly has a power that makes them feel at ease.”

“I know what you are worried about, Miss Fenrir. You are worried about what to do if those gangsters, those dark and evil forces hidden in corners that you may not necessarily detect, make a comeback after losing the assistance of [Executioner], right?”

Hitana nodded vigorously: “I can’t stay here forever patrolling twenty-four hours a day.”

“But the commoners of the Lower District have experience, Miss Fenrir.”

Marina held Hitana’s hand, brought her five fingers together, and slowly clenched them into a fist.

“They will vaguely realize that being united together is useful——if they cannot unite to commission [Executioner], then unite to fight against those bad guys themselves.”

……Just like in Chishuang Territory, those so-called commoners “united” to fight against Mr. Anselm.

Marina gazed at her sister, but a trace of cold light flashed deep in her eyes.

Hitana couldn’t see it. She just felt Marina’s words made extreme sense, and said with sparkling eyes: “It can still be like this!”

Of course, one couldn’t wait for them to unite spontaneously…… that was impossible.

The matter of the commission only buried a pile of firewood in their hearts, but to ignite it, a fuse was needed, a burning fuse.

Throw out an innocent victim bullied by the dark and evil forces of the Lower District, the more miserable the end the better.

At the same time, use this misery to incite the crowd to launch a resistance riot.

With this as the lead, emphasize the matter of “joint commission” openly or secretly, encouraging the heat deep in their hearts and igniting that pile of firewood.

The success rate was not high, but it was worth a try.

Marina would not say these words to Hitana.

Because starting from the first sentence——throwing out an innocent victim, Hitana would immediately veto this plan.

She would only think about saving everyone she could save, and would definitely not watch someone suffer in front of her and remain indifferent.

But she happened to be unable to truly save everyone.

Marina looked at her sister with a brilliant smile and said softly: “I will arrange how to do it specifically, don’t worry, Miss Fenrir.”

“Hehehe…… I know! Lina is the most reliable!”

Hitana happily gave a bear hug to her sister with force, rubbed back and forth happily, fantasizing about the beautiful scene of the Lower District in the future.

Marina gently stroked the girl’s hair.

The scene she depicted, in her own view, was actually just an experiment with a passable success rate worth trying.

She wanted to see if this bunch of people in the Lower District could still be saved.

Cutting off the assistance from Transcenders.

Through this method, help them piece together the dignity of being human from their annihilated selves and shattered values, rather than hoping for the grace of Transcenders.

Marina faintly felt…… this was the path Anselm intended to open up.

The morbid state of this world did not stem purely from the one-way domination of mortals by Transcenders, but a two-way distortion.

Before letting mortals not become playthings of Transcenders, one must first let them…… possess the resolve of self-reliance.

Even if looking from an objective perspective, it was impossible to achieve equality with Transcenders no matter what.

Even if being inferior was an absolute conclusion, there should still be some resolve of resistance and anger remaining at the bottom of the heart.

Just like the social system constructed by the Empire…… the extremely emphasized social classes diluted the difference between Transcendent and Ordinary.

The resentment of commoners towards the corruption and incompetence of lords and bureaucrats was real and came from the heart.

But in the West Kingdom, among the mortals waiting for gifts, how many would hate Transcenders from the bottom of their hearts?

This was an extremely difficult path completely without a clue, but Marina had already made up her mind; she would definitely accompany Anselm to the end.

Here, Strife Fortress, Lower District, was her testing ground.

She would fumble out the correct direction step by step, laying the most solid foundation for Anselm’s road ahead.

At the same time there was also……

After Hitana left, Marina sat down and opened the locked cabinet, inside was her personal notebook.

The girl accurately turned to a certain page of the notebook and read it again.

[Executioner], Death Knell, Faust……

This intelligence was all highly confidential data she requested Rhine to send over, cherished incomparably.

Marina firmly believed that Anselm staying in Strife Fortress definitely had a profound meaning. She launched in-depth investigations into all forces here, and through the data provided by Rhine, finally locked onto the guild [Executioner].

To change all this, one had to change commoners, and also change Transcenders.

And Marina knew deeply that her current ability could only make some changes to commoners. How to change Transcenders…… naturally could only be completed by Anselm.

Through the understanding of [Executioner] and Death Knell, plus the advantage Anselm gave her——the advantage of being able to use the image of Faust at will, Marina quickly deduced a possibility: Anselm did not want Faust to become a certain fixed image, or perhaps…… he wanted to hold this right completely in his own hands.

Thus, even in the absence of certain key information, Marina still further deduced Anselm’s thoughts: achieving perfect control over Faust’s image by manipulating Death Knell.

So she set up an extremely simple trap, threatening Swordfish, the vice president, ordering him to shut down the acceptance of commissions for commoners, blocking the dependence of commoners on Transcenders to a certain extent.

At the same time, she also predicted that Swordfish would definitely tell this matter to Death Knell, and Death Knell would not let go of such an opportunity to test Faust.

The fish took the bait just like that.

Although she didn’t know how exactly Anselm could control Death Knell, Marina did not doubt Anselm’s ability in the slightest.

She could be one hundred percent sure that this was not a problem for Anselm at all, and was even more sure that her doing this was also within Anselm’s expectations.

And next…… it would be Anselm slowly exerting Faust’s influence in the realm of Transcenders; while she controlled the commoners of the Lower District, practicing bit by bit, fumbling out the method that could correct this twisted world.

This way could accumulate experience for herself, help Hitana leave this quagmire to continue her journey, and also lay the foundation for future reforms……

As expected of Mr. Anselm!

Speaking of which, Mr. Anselm has been doing those commoner commissions all along, is it also a kind of hint?

Hinting to me that commoners cannot rely on Transcenders excessively?

Marina hugged the notebook, imagining the greatness of the person she followed full of longing.

Only the girl did not know that this time, Anselm standing at the fork in the road…… did not think about walking in her direction.

Just like a shadow under the scorching light, facing a completely different direction from the person himself.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep