Book 4 - Chapter 75 - Assassination (2/2)

Mr. Ink’s injuries appeared severe, and he was in obvious pain. He rested for about a minute before continuing.

“Sending Clay Cloude here to help the front lines is a lie. His true goal is to murder the expedition’s General – to kill you. The wastelands are in his grasp, and if he can eliminate your check on his power then even the High Priest wouldn’t be able to stand in his way.”

Mr. Ink looked down at his grave injuries.

“As for evidence… I am the evidence. On the way back to your side I was attacked by the two Cloudes. First they tried to blackmail me into helping them kill you. No more proof is needed to know their foul aims for the expeditionary forces.”

“The impertinence!” Skye’s anger flared. “Arcturus will explain himself before the Temple, or I will personally break every bone in his body and tear down his mansion with my own hands!”

It was then two dark figures emerged from the dust.

“Who goes there!” Skye hollered.

Although the grim environment hid them from view, Skye knew from their potent auras who these shadows were. Frost and Clay. Had they been there the whole time?

Mr. Ink stumbled to Skye’s side and dropped into a combat pose. “They’ve followed me here!”

“I will deal with them.”

Skye stepped in front of Mr. Ink.

But before he could say a word, he felt a searing pain in his abdomen.

It was the sort of pain he hadn’t felt in a long, long time.

It was the pain of a weapon tearing through his skin and into his body. After so many years spent training, Skye’s body was a fortress. Few weapons could pierce his iron-like flesh.

Mr. Ink had fetched a dark blade from his sleeve, glowing with the power of a relic. The dagger was similar to Atlas’ Deathstalker, only perhaps more deadly. Not only had it pierced Skye’s belly, but once buried in his guts it released its dark power.

The unassuming weapon was like a gateway. Once it was in Skye’s body it became to gush with a foul sludge. Whatever filth this was quickly spread through the General’s body.

Skye looked down as his ruddy, bronzed skin turned dusky in hue. His eyes were wide, and disbelief was thick in his voice. “You… you… “

“I’m sorry. They convinced me to do it, but I didn’t want to. I’ve been your man for twenty years, and I still care for the Polaris family.” The melancholy in Mr. Ink’s eyes did not look feigned, but it was quickly replaced with a dark brutality. “Unfortunately, I am a demonic agent, and I still have work to do.”

Disappointment, pain, heart-break, anger – despair. It all jumbled in Skye’s mind as he realized the betrayal. His stately and dignified expression twisted.

Skye Polaris had dedicated his life to the protection of Skycloud. He thought he was its righteous guardian. Yet all this time a demon spy was in his shadow. For twenty years. He never knew. Hell, he treated the man like family.

How much important information had he stolen for his dark masters? How many plots and schemes had been enacted right under Skye’s nose?

Raging fury welled up inside him, causing his whole body to blaze with a white-gold light. Shining like a pillar of holy fire, even the air around him warped. He opened his mouth, but instead of a scream an orb of pure white burst out around him. Mr. Ink was flung hundreds of meters away like a leaf on an autumn breeze.

His tattered clothing became hardly more than rags. His mask disintegrated. What was revealed was the thin frame of a man in his fifties. When Mr. Ink finally came to a stop, he looked toward his former master as the light gradually faded from around him. Skye polaris stumbled like a drunk man trying to keep his footing.

“It’s a relic given to me by the demons, ‘Death and Decay.’ It was crafted with the will of those fiends, specifically to be used against powerful men like you. You’ve cultivated a physique that has surpassed the realm of man and is almost god-like, but already the power of Death and Decay is coursing through you. It’s spreading through your entire body. It won’t be long before you rot from the inside and die.”

It didn’t matter how strong he was. Skye Polaris was only human! How could a human resist demonic corrosion?

A figure streaked down toward them from above. The light of a silver spear struck the old man’s cranium, summoning a shower of sparks.

Frost’s attack was deflected. To him it didn’t feel like striking a body at all, rather like cutting through a steel wall. Wasn’t Skye’s body supposed to be weakened by the power of Death and Decay? Why hadn’t his killing blow ended the old soldier?

Skye swung around with a quick counterattack! Frost was forced to back away.

The grizzled old man was gasping for breath. He couldn’t follow up on the attack. The wound to his stomach was neither long nor deep, logically it was hardly a scratch to him. His rate of recovery was only superhuman, or should have been.

IN his younger years Skye had once had his arm cut clean off. He dealt with it by picking up the severed limb and pressing it back into place. It healed on its own. His regenerative abilities were unquestionable, and he’d only gotten stronger since. This, in addition to his formidable physical defenses, were part of what made him so powerful.

And yet this small wound, a few centimeters long, would not heal!

The stench that came from it was nauseating. Gouts of black blood seeped from it, sick and viscous like mud from a bog.

“The old man should come to accept his death. You cling to something that doesn’t belong to you, that is what has brought you here.” Clay stood before Skye, delivering his sermon. “The time of your demise has come.”

He made no effort to conceal the contempt in his gaze. A boor like this, who was strong but lacked strategy, what qualifications did he have to lead Skycloud in any capacity? A fool with nothing but big muscles should have quit long ago!

Master Arcturus was a true and great genius, and the only person with the right to lead. It was his destiny to unite the wastelands and Skycloud. He was not some war hawk, he had true vision, and the strength to change the world for the better!

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