A rapidly moving projectile was headed straight at Night's chest. It was extreamly fast. He wasn't going to be able to move his whole body in time to get out of the way. On reflex, the slip of paper containing the directions fell from his grip and his knife appeared in his hand from the space ring. It was going to be easier to deflect the projectile than to defend. The attack was just too powerful. Night twisted the knife to expose its flat edge and moved to deflect the incoming item. It felt like the world was moving slowly as Night's knife blade hit the incoming attack.

The impact was pretty strong and Night felt like something left his soul as the impact rocked him to the side. Night adjusted the momentum of the attack with his knife blade to redirect it downward. The hit was so strong that he could feel it in his soul. His whole body spun as he deflected the attack. Almost immediately, a thud sounded from near his feet. He glanced down and saw a crossbow bolt embedded into the sandy ground of the street. Night felt a shiver run through him. A bubbling mess was coming up from where a crossbow bolt made contact with the street.

'Fuck, the arrow was even poisoned,' Night thought as he looked up and prepared for another attack. His whole body was tingling and a weird sensation was coming from his soul.

Pissed that someone had just tried to kill him, Night reached out with his full strength soul perception to find the perpetrator. He could sense a man rapidly moving away from the scene.

"Got you fucker," Night said as he darted down the alley in pursuit. His anger had reached a peak.

After about five minutes, the man carrying the crossbow had stopped off in a small corridor and ducked into a doorway. By this time, Night had caught up and was observing the whole time. With his soul perception, he could see the man settle into what appeared to be a safe room in the side of the building. As Night observed, the man picked up a stone off the table and held it to his forehead.

"He dodged the poisoned bolt. The Chosen is much stronger than we thought. Shit man, he must be at least a Level 5 Demigod to dodge an attack from this crossbow," the man said before pausing. The person on the other end of the communication stone must be talking.

After a moment, the man resumed his side of the conversation, "I know. He didn't follow me at all. When I left he was squatted in the street staring at the crossbow bolt. He wasn't watching what way I went."

There was another pause.

"Alright, next time...you are going to have to come with me. If both of us had shot a bolt at the same time, then he wouldn't have been able to dodge," the man said as a follow up, "I'll talk to you later."

The man put down the stone and sat at a table in the room. He was still breathing slightly heavy from his running when darkness descended upon him. He reached for the crossbow, but a pain hit his soul and he collapsed to the ground unconscious.

'Thanks, Distress,' Night said mentally.

The darkness in the room faded. Night fiddled with the door lock and he stepped into the room.

Night walked over to the table and sat down to look at the man. The man was only a level one demigod. He didn't know what this was all about, but one thing was certain...he was leaving tomorrow, so this mess would be behind him.

"Hey, Distress," Night asked mentally, "You ready to form your blood body?"

"Yes! Yes! I want one so bad!," Distress yelled at Night through the mental connection.

'You have five minutes to get as much information out of him as possible, then we'll start the process,' Night said as he went about checking the man for anything good.

———————

By the time he had got back to the house that evening, Night had discovered a nice surprise.

He found the surprise when he inspected his soul. He had felt a few tingles in his soul when he was attacked...so he decided to perform a full inspection to make sure nothing was wrong. What he found was an odd looking dagger floating near he soul. After a bit of thought he realized that he must have broke through in his knife skills during the assassination attempt. He hadn't really used them much lately but he did continue to train with his knives when he had a spare moment.

To test his theory, he pulled a knife out and focused his intent on the blade. Immediately, he could feel a bit of both his soul and elemental energy go out of his body and surround the knife. The feeling was quite weird, but Night realized that this was a significant increase to his strength.

'Seems like I am now a Level 1 Demigod in the Truth of the Knife now,' Night thought, 'That makes five concepts total. What a great bonus before I leave this place.'

———————————

The next morning, Night woke up to a woman working her way under his sheets. She hadn't spent the night with him again.

However, Lili seemed much more energetic after her night of cultivation....it was like she wanted to make up for leaving him alone all night.

After a few rounds of this and that, Lili was curled up by Night's side.

"I really do love you, you know?," she said as she traced his scars with her fingers again. It seemed to be one of her favorite things.

Night was taken aback by her comment. He just stared at her with a bit of guilt running through him. He had developed some sort of feeling towards her over the last couple days. But it wasn't enough for him to risk his soul. He still was going to leave tonight when she went off to cultivate.

Seeing Night staring off and not providing a response, Lili said, "Are you alright?"

"Yes, I was just thinking...Someone tried to kill me yesterday after I visited the blacksmith," Night responded. He didn't want it to seem so obvious that he was avoiding her previous question...so he decided to give up some information.

"What?," Lili exclaimed as her face went red with anger.

Seeing the intense reaction, Night said, "Don't worry. I already killed one of the two involved. Your Source named Lorent from the Phene Clan is dead by the way. The one helping him was also from the Phene Clan....Kire is his name. I didn't get a chance to kill that one. If I wasn't as strong as I am, I would have died though. You need to pick your Sources better....some that know their place and aren't ruled by jealousy."

Lili seemed to be in thought at Night's words. She apologized in her own way then invited Night to a lunch prepared by her staff

When they were taking their lunch break, Lili asked Night if he wanted to visit the demon court. She really seemed to like showing Night off...like a prized pony. Night didn't mind. He still felt a little guilt over his planned escape and this would help it go away.

Thinking about his escape plans, Night felt a little relief that he was getting out of this situation. He had made arrangements to pickup his completed items from the blacksmith and jeweler tonight. Since Lili was now leaving him alone at night to go cultivate.....he had the perfect opportunity to go pickup his stuff, snag some extra supplies, and bail on the city.

He even had a contingency. If some delay happened, then he could always delay a day without an issue. Night still had two more days until Lili took him to meet her mother.

So, today.....Night was going to take a trip with Lili to the demon court. Despite his desire to get out of here, he actually enjoyed seeing a new part of the city. Over the last few days, Night had gotten a general layout of the Limim Clan. Most dwellings were centered around the main palace of Countess Asta. The closer to the main palace, then the higher the standing in the demon royal court. Lili's house was a little more than half of the way to the Palace, so that put her in a decent amount of status for a woman that wasn't even a Demigod yet.

Now, Lili and Night were actually headed to the Royal Palace since it housed the Royal Court. The whole ordeal sounded somewhat formal, but Night didn't really care. It would give him some more information about the demons and let him see the palace.

After a few minutes of travel, they arrived and were escorted into the palace. The palace was a marvel from Night’s architectural perspective. It was massive, but didn’t lack on the fine details. The walls were embellished with all sorts of stone carvings and sculptures.

After a quiet walk through the palace, Night and Lili arrived at a large open room. Lili nodded to one of the attendants as they entered.

"Ms. Lilith Dreamwalker and her Chosen, Night," the man announced as they stepped into the room.

Most of the room turned to look at the pair as they entered. There had to be about 120 people in large open room. The room looked like a classic ball room with high ceilings, mostly standing space and a few chairs and tables off to the side.

Everyone was just loitering around like it was a dinner party...but there was no dinner. After entering, Lili proceeded to walk Night around the room to introduce him to the various important people in the city.

Night tried to use his soul perception to view these people's strength, but to his surprise.....some seemed to have items that blocked his viewing.....but most seemed to be low level Demigods. Despite his efforts, the palace really seemed to be limiting his soul perception range. It made sense that the royals didn't want people peeping in on them.....but that didn't mean that Night liked it. Actually, the lack of his usual wide perception range made him feel really uncomfortable.

Although the conversation always seemed pleasant, Night had a feeling that some of the people were taking subtle shots at him and making threats. He could definitely tell that a few were hinting at him being troublemaker by commenting on his arrest and arena battle...but their words were phrased very friendly....it is like they were insulting him in a different language.

"Why does everyone seem so agreeable with each other.....but not at the same time?," Night asked Lili. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it completely turned Night's expectations of a royal court on end. He really expected to see the open scheming and hostilities that the royal courts showed in the movies back on Earth.

"Silly, of course they all get along well on the surface," Lili said with a bit of derision in her voice, "Everyone here is working for the betterment of themselves. Any topics that may cause strife in the court are generally not discussed openly...they do that privately in order to not offend the Countess."

When Night heard Lili say 'strife', he instantly got an idea. These people and their fake niceties were driving him crazy. If they thought of him as a troublemaker, then why not cause a little trouble? He was leaving tonight anyway.

"So, everything here is just a facade?," Night asked Lili a question.

"Somewhat. The courtiers speak in their own code to setup plots and schemes. They think that they are sly and can sneak around. But Mother always said that nothing said in the court goes unnoticed," Lili said.

"Oh. Can we sit for a moment? I would like to just sit and observe everyone a bit," Night asked showing a wariness from walking around the room for a while.

"Sure, how about you go sit over there and I go have a chat with a few of my friends?," Lili said as she pointed to a chair over to the side and turned to walk off.

By the time he sat down, Night had already thought of a plan to cause a little fuss among some of the courtiers. He was going to make a few show their true selves.

He whispered to himself, "Bitter words of conflict. Stress begets truth. Strife."

A small surge of energy swept out from Night as he executed his least used Darkness skill. The amount of power was so small that it went unnoticed to everyone in the room. But then Night felt a click in his soul and a strong pull of darkness elemental energy towards him.

'Shit, I didn't want that to happen,' Night thought as he realized that he was about to breakthrough to a Demigod of Strife. He hadn't even used this skill very much. He was just trying to liven things up a bit because those few courtiers had pissed him off by taking cheap shots at him. He didn't want to cause a full out scene.

Surprisingly, no one seemed to notice that Night was breaking through in the corner of the room. However, the room was gradually getting louder as a few arguments started to break out between the nearby courtiers.

Even with the action happening, Night was somewhat oblivious to what was going on. He was currently watching the darkness element form into another orb rotating around his soul. He also saw an extremely black film form directly around his soul.

'So that is why some Demigods can fight back in the soul despite focusing on elements. It seems that some elemental concepts also contain components of the soul," Night thought to himself realizing that he had uncovered another riddle.

After a few seconds finishing up his breakthrough, Night came out of his thoughts and heard the full out commotion in the room. Some people certainly weren't covering up their emotions anymore as they started yelling matches with one another over their conflicting political views.

All of a sudden, a trumpet sound rang out over the room. The sound was pretty intense and caused everyone to focus in on the doors at the side of the room. Night eased off his newly formed Concept of Strife...then he looked for Lili and made his way over to see her.

After a few seconds of absolute quietness in the court, an usher came out of the large double doors on the west side of the large room.....and walked right up to Lili.

"Lady Lilith, the Countess Asta has recognized your attendance in the court and would like to invite you and your Chosen to visit with her now," the user said before turning to lead the way.

"Great! Mother must have had a spot in her schedule open up. Quick.....Night.....let's go," Lili said grabbing Night’s hand and pulling him along happily.

"Wait.....your mother is the Countess Asta?," Night asked realizing that he really had really stepped into a mess.

"Of course! Who did you think my mom was, Silly?," Lili responded with a smile.

'Damn,' Night thought as he looked around for a way to get out of this place, 'I just screwed up....big time.'