Chapter 86

we set off in the morning, with a rather potent blessing curtsey of dryad. The trip there was uneventful, I had to focus on not triping over my rapidly moving feet that I couldn’t really do much else. We stop a mile out from the walls of the city in a forested area to review our plans.

“Uncle, you need to take out the necromancy corp, yours is arguably the most important job. Without those necromancers there army will be cut down by a little more than half.” Jack

Next I point to three of the five assassins that have managed to distinguish themselves.

“You three will be taking out the small fry, the guys that actually lead the troops in the battlefield.”

Lucy is the next one I pick out.

“There is a particular character in this city, an incredibly powerful elementalist, if you can’t take him out then try to cripple him.” Jack

Lydia perks up as I look at her.

“Here is a list of targets along with their place of residence, kill as many of them as you can.” Jack

Handing her the letter I turn to asmodeus.

“Do whatever it is your doing, just make sure not to blow our cover.” Jack

I turn to the last two, handing them both letters similar to Lydia’s

“You two, these are your targets.” Jack

Nodding, they accept the letters.

“what will you be doing” Uncle

“I will be going for the head, the king.” Jack

Uncle shows a face halfway between worry and pride, before finally settling on pride.

“If we can pull this off we can take this city with next to zero casualties, on our side at least.” Jack

“And if we don’t?”

“Worst case scenario, we all die, but then again that’s almost always the case, isn’t it.” Jack

As there are 4 entrances, corresponding with the four cardinal directions, we decide to split into four groups for entry, with everyone handling their own entry fee. We all agree to meet up here once our assignments are complete; if any of us gets caught they are to run away in the opposite direction.

I enter with uncle and we part ways after paying the toll. I go for a stroll down the streets in the direction of the keep in the center of the city, picking people’s minds a bit for recent memories of the king. What I find is pretty interesting; it seems the king is sick. He has called in many professionals but no one was able to identify the disease.

It takes me a while but eventually I walk by someone that knows a little more about what is going on with the king, one of his butlers getting food for tonight’s dinner. It seems the disease is not arcane in nature but rather spiritual; it is a disease of the soul. They managed to find a soul mage who is supposed to help with it; no one seems to know more than that.

This worries me a little; an unknown soul mage could be a serious threat to me, I’m still going to kill the king, but there is an increased chance for risk, and profit.

By the time I am halfway to the keep I feel a very powerful soul in the direction of the keep, stronger than mine. I pause for a moment before continuing, it seems it has not noticed me, but I attempt to mask myself and my soul anyway.

It seems to work as it doesn’t notice me even as I am entering the keep grounds. It doesn’t take long to find a place I can move through the wall in my shadow form without being spotted. Taking a physical form again I try to hide myself in every way as well as I can, and honestly I did a pretty good job at it.

At one point I pass by a room with a sleeping fiend in it, out of reflex I search through its recent memories. It seems the creature is a general, why he’s here I don’t care. Separating his soul from his body I quickly refine it into a soul stone and put it into my inventory.

Continuing on I manage to avoid detection by everyone, eventually making it to a room containing the king, the soul I noticed earlier, and several high ranking personal. All of whom are on the kill list. Observing the soul from this close tells me a couple things, most obvious is that he doesn’t have very good control of his soul, second is that he has next to no experience as a soul mage, he got to his current power by absorbing soul stones provided by the king, third is that there is a massive treasury full of the things underground.

Before entering the room I take a magical device from my inventory, this one is designed to prevent anything from escaping a bubble of influence; things can enter, but not leave. Also is almost impossible to move while it is on, and can only be turned off when someone puts the right pattern of mana into it, or it runs out of mana. This should keep any servants from raising alarms.

I blink into the center of the room, activate the device, rip the souls out of everyone except the king and the soul mage, let them all go as I don’t have time to refine them, and stab the king in the heart before any of them can react. I would have ripped his soul out but I’m worried his disease might have been contagious.

“Y y you ri ri ripped out their so souls.” Soul mage

The soul mage is paralyzed from the neck down in fear for a moment before realizing that his soul is stronger than mine and tries to attack me with it. Smirking I ignore his attack, he obviously has no idea what he is doing. Without a word I work on removing his soul, which is significantly more difficult than most people’s as he can actually manipulate the soul. He quickly realizes that he has no chance to avoid his soul being ripped out so he launches an all out attack on mine, actually leaving his body due to a combination of the weakened links to it and the force behind his attack.

His attack actually does some damage, nothing permanent but is still hurt like a bitch. The attack leaves his soul wide open and I manage to ensnare it, trapping his recently formed ghost I begin to refine it. to my surprise it begins to scream, something I’ve never seen a soul do before. The scream even manages to damage my soul slightly, albeit not by much. It also takes a very long time to refine his soul, two hours compared to the usual almost instant refining for almost everything else. During this time I try to listen to the screams, to see if there is anything I learn from them.

I gain no insight to the screams till an hour into the refining process, they are emotional. I believe I have discovered the emotional side of soul magic, what I have been doing before doesn’t rely on emotion at all, but with this new possibilities will open up, at least I think, I have no way of knowing till I do some more studying.

Once I am done I am left holding the largest soul stone I have ever seen, the thing is as large as my head and denser than any other soul stone I have ever seen. Putting it into my inventory I notice a notification in the corner of my vision.

spirit has increased to 145

Not bad, 2.1 point increase to the stat over two hours. Opening up my status I review the detailed layout of my level and I am pretty close to a level up there as well, I should get one within the week.

Now, I happen to know, through virtue of digging through other people’s memories, that the king has a single living relative, the heir to the crown. He is a twelve year old boy and is currently begging the chef to give him treats. Unfortunately I have to kill him, I never did like killing children but I don’t want him coming back seeking revenge in the future, that is how most successful assassins die.

I disable the device before blinking too the kitchen, which is two floors down and a little to my right, definitely within range. The chef had just left the room and the boy is busy trying to steal some pastries. Before he can react I plunge my dagger into his heart, killing him painlessly thanks to the sedatives on the blade. Grabbing him I blink back up to the room his father was in, and set his corpse on his father’s lap. leaving a pastry on his lap.

End chapter 86